


cedar and smoke

by neonheartbeat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Amortentia, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Classism, Dark Magic, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hogwarts Inter-House Rivalries, Inappropriate Use of Wandless Magic (Harry Potter), Insults, Legilimency (Harry Potter), M/M, Modern Era, Muggle Studies, Multi, No Pregnancy, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Social Issues, Teacher/Teacher Relationships, Trans Character, Transphobia, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28993881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: Professor Rey Nieman is workingveryhard on her second year teaching Muggle Studies at Hogwarts: after all, it's a brand new required class in this modern day and age, and she's fresh out of grad school. As a Muggle-born, she brings a valuable viewpoint to the curriculum.However, not every professor is as welcoming as most of her peers, and as the year progresses, Rey begins to uncover dark secrets lurking in the very walls of Hogwarts.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron/Tallissan Lintra, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Snoke & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 389
Kudos: 300





	1. The Light In The Forest

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be going back and editing this as I update for good measure and I'll be updating the tags with the chapters!!! My brain's broken. I'm so sorry. Enjoy the academic rivalry.

Rain pattered down on the thick glass windows, smearing the world outside into indistinct blurs of grey. The castle walls were dank and chilly: it was the first autumn rain of the year and the second-year students taking Muggle Studies tucked their chins into their scarves as Professor Nieman walked purposefully down the center aisle, watching them write with pens and pencils. 

“You’ll note,” she continued, pointing at the space heater in the center of the room, “that the space heater needs to be plugged into… can anyone tell me?”

“The electricity!” said a girl with a gap in her front teeth and two puffs of soft black hair on top of her head. 

“Close! Remember, electricity is the  _ power, _ but what is the thing it goes through? Anyone?” Professor Nieman paused, smiling slightly at a towheaded girl who had her hand raised so high she seemed to be climbing out of her seat. “Anyone apart from magic-using students born into a non-magical home?” she amended, watching her wilt a little. A brown-haired boy raised his hand. “Yes, Mr. Alvarez?”

“Um, the wall plug?” he guessed, eyes wide.

“Yes!” She turned and wrote on the blackboard with a piece of chalk:  _ electric plug.  _ “Instead of magic to help them do things, non-magical people have ensured every room in their houses are wired for electricity. This is just as dangerous as magic if it’s not properly controlled, mind you: every year plenty of people wind up in hospital to be treated for shocks sustained when they misuse electricity, just as Mr. Thompson over there had to be treated in the hospital wing for misfiring a Bat-Bogey Hex.” That got some giggles from the class and a red face from Thompson, who covered his eyes in good-natured embarrassment. 

“Professor, isn’t it true that a lot of Muggles don’t have electricity?” asked the blond girl who had been so eager to answer.

“Yes, Miss MacAllister. That’s very true.” Professor Nieman turned and tapped her laptop, privately thrilled she’d managed to argue a reason to have the spell that blocked electronics from working at Hogwarts lifted in her classroom. The projector flashed onto the blackboard and showed images of a village in India, then one in Africa, then South America, then the American Appalachians. “You’ll note that in regions exploited by wealthier people for a very long time, there’s a lack of resources such as electricity to help people in their day-to-day life. Clean water, education— many things we take for granted are simply not there.”

Her class looked gobsmacked at the pictures. Many of them had never before had cause to consider the interpersonal relations of Muggles: they were mostly children with wizarding parents.  _ High time they saw the world properly, _ she thought with a grim sigh, shutting down her computer. You couldn’t really talk about Muggles without understanding the complex history and relations between them, and she meant to do her best. “Homework is to find a non-magical artifact and attempt to use it for a week, then write me a twelve-inch essay. I want to hear what the artifact was, what you used it for, and what you think magic could have done in its place. Class dismissed.”

Her students all got up in a rustle of papers and robes, and as they headed out they picked up their wands from the collection bucket she made them all leave them in every class period. How was she supposed to make them understand what being a Muggle was like if they could use magic in class?  _ At least I won that fight with the parents,  _ she thought as she packed up her bag and shouldered it over her jumper. Several Wizarding families had been absolutely incensed at the idea of their children having to leave their wands behind for an hour a day, but the headmaster had backed her up, which had been nice. 

Out the door she went, shutting it behind her, and began the trek to her office. She had papers from her sixth-year class to grade, and her next class didn’t begin until nearly one— it was only nine in the morning, but the gloomy rain made it feel as if it was already evening. Students passed her in the halls, their robes flapping as they hurried to their classes, and she greeted her fellow professors with a wave as she shielded her head from the rain in the courtyard she had to pass through to get to the stairs. 

It had taken quite some time for her to get used to navigating the castle, even as a student, which hadn’t been quite that long ago, but seemed ages past. Back then she’d just been Aurelia Nieman, Rey to her few friends, a skinny little Muggle-born who’d been bewildered by the sudden intrusion into this new world of magic, but who’d been determined, nonetheless, to make the most of both worlds.  _ How am I supposed to take my A-levels if my OWLs are the same week?  _ she’d agonized, wondering how she was supposed to make both worlds meet. Her parents had been no help, either. She’d had to work it out on her own. But she’d been successful, more or less, she thought as she ducked into the shelter of the covered hall, wiping water from her eyes. And everyone had welcomed her back to Hogwarts as the Muggle Studies professor, especially since they’d wanted someone who had lived a non-magical life to teach it— it was no longer an elective, but a required course—

Her rubber wellies squeaked as she brought herself up short on the stone floor, nearly running headlong into a shadow.

“Professor Nieman,” said a voice, low, black, and grim. 

Well.  _ Almost _ everyone had welcomed her.

“Professor Solo,” she said, her hackles rising. Clearly she’d misjudged the time. He was on his way to his ten o’clock Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and he stared down his nose at her like she was some kind of insect, his robes (as always) perfectly immaculate and tailored to fit his imposing frame.  _ I thought he’d be in the hall by now.  _ Black-haired, dark-eyed, with a long, angularly crooked face that seemed to be permanently sullen, he was one of the least friendly people Rey had ever met in her life, even though Americans were supposed to be friendly, weren’t they? He never gave a compliment, he never smiled, he never gave a single student a high mark: his expectations were astronomical, and his conversation (if you could even call it that) was terse, clipped, and to the point. Students lived in mortal terror of his final exams, and even Headmaster Kanata gave him a wide berth.  _ At least I wasn’t at Hogwarts when he was.  _ In fact, if she had the timeline right, he must have graduated… what, the year before she’d entered first year? He had to be at least nine years her senior. Maybe ten. 

“Does Muggle Studies enforce a no-magic rule for its professors?” he asked coldly, staring at her.

“What?” she said, taken aback. “No.”

“Have you forgotten how to perform a Drying Charm?”

Rey gaped at him. “No. I was— I was—”

“Hold still,” he snapped, and withdrew his wand from an inner pocket of his robe. She felt stung: her own wand of red oak was jammed into her bag still, probably between a Spellotape spool and a packet of crumbly biscuits, and his hawthorn was gleaming and polished to a dark shine. Solo flicked it at her irritably, and she felt heat rush her from head to toe as all the rain evaporated from her, leaving her dry. “There,” he said, replacing the wand. “You may not look like a professional, but at least you no longer look like a wet dog.”

“Thanks,” she said coldly. Not look like a  _ professional? _ She had her OWLs, she’d done a year abroad, she’d gotten her ordinary qualifications— which was more than  _ he’d _ likely had. Who cared if she was wearing a knobbly old wool jumper under her secondhand tweed robe? “If you’ll excuse me, Professor, I have essays to grade.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, his eye twitching slightly as he regarded her. “I would not like to keep you from such important work. Heaven forbid some pureblood sixth-year doesn’t know how to operate a Muggle kitchen.”

“Wizarding,” she snapped, her heart pounding.

His cheek flexed. “Excuse me?”

“It’s ‘wizarding sixth-year’, not ‘pureblood’. ‘Pureblood’ has negative connotations and upholds ridiculous outdated ideas. If a magic-using child is born to a non-wizarding parent and a magic-using one, it’s all the same. The concept of blood purity is inherently—”

Solo cut her off, his tone as acid as anything in Professor Hux's Potions cauldrons. “Yes, I read those idiotic pamphlets sent out by the Ministry of Magic, as did every other professor here. Forgive us all for not instantly changing how we’ve spoken for hundreds of years on the whim of some idiot petitioning the government for more  _ inclusivity _ and—”

_ “ _I_ wrote _ those pamphlets,” Rey hissed, and took vindictive delight in watching the shock flit over his impassive face before whirling on her heel and storming past him. Once she’d reached the end of the hall, she turned. He was still standing there, watching her like a statue, and out of spite she walked back out into the rain, enjoying the cold water splattering down on her head again as Solo finally turned and walked away, his robes billowing after him. 

* * *

Dinner was, as always, a lavish and delicious affair. Rey Nieman sat at the end of the high table next to the Flying professor, Dameron, as she wolfed down beef roast, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, buttery carrots, and broccoli. He was regaling her with a story about how one of his first-years had almost fallen onto the roof that morning before they’d canceled due to the weather. 

“And then,” he continued, grinning, “the poor kid was practically hanging by his toes when I got him down.”

“How’re the teams coming along for Quidditch?” she asked, sipping pumpkin juice. 

“Oh, not too bad. I think the Ravenclaw seventh-years have a good team going. Might give Slytherin a run for their money. Knock them down a peg.” Poe Dameron was rakishly handsome, with a wide smile, and it seemed every Valentine’s Day he got about a hundred anonymous singing cards from lovestruck seventh-years, which he’d politely ignore. He’d been the assistant to old Professor Antilles when Rey had been in her last year, and she could still remember the outright admiration of half her class. Dameron had played a few seasons of Quidditch for Puddlemere United before officially retiring due to a wayward Bludger that had broken his left arm badly, but despite that he still had an ardent fanbase. “You ought to come to a match or two. You’d like it.”

“Ah, show some old House pride?” she said, grinning. “I think I’ve still got a Ravenclaw scarf somewhere in my trunk. Might as well. How’s Gryffindor shaping up?”

Poe shrugged. “Mmm, hard to say. It’s only September, but their captain graduated last year, so they’re floundering a bit. And Hufflepuff’s… Hufflepuff. But you can’t deny their hearts are in the right place.”

“That they are. I know I can’t show favoritism, but really, they’re my best students.” Rey drained her cup and set it down. “And they worked so hard to make sure the reforms for the house-elf labor unions went through last year.”

“Oh, I wondered why their table always gets the extra desserts,” joked Poe. Right on time, the food vanished, cleared away and replaced by chocolate pudding and custard tarts. Hufflepuff’s table, true to Poe’s word, boasted a large creme brulee, which the children cracked open and dug into with excitement. 

“They deserve it,” Rey told Poe, eating her own pudding. 

Dameron sank back a little and picked up his fork. “I heard Professor Solo got into an argument with Professor Iji over the right charm to use to defend from a vampire attack this afternoon. Look. He’s still got a face like a thundercloud.”

Rey looked over to the other end of the table and caught a glimpse of Solo staring into his plate, a dour expression on his face. “I think that’s just how his face looks,” she told Dameron, who choked on his cocoa and hid his face in a napkin to muffle his laughter. 

“Iji almost hit him with a Horn-Tongue Hex to get him out of his office. I’d like to see those two in a duel.”

“Oh, I’m sure Finn would wipe the floor with him,” Rey said fiercely. She liked Finn Iji: he was one of the most competent of her peers, and had a reputation for being encouraging and positive with his students. He’d been a year above her in school, and despite the fact that he’d been sorted Gryffindor, she’d maintained a friendship with him. 

“I don’t know. I’ve heard some strange stories about Solo.” Dameron wiggled his eyebrows, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Oh, like what?”

“Just that he’s descended from some Dark Wizard stock on one side or another.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Rey muttered. “He’s a pompous arse who can’t stand that things are changing in the world.”

“Well, you know. Keep an eye open.” Dameron pretended to toast her, and she laughed. 

“You too. I’m headed to bed, then. Big day tomorrow. I start the fourth years’ lesson on transportation, the Second World War, and nuclear bombs.”

“That sounds… fun,” said Poe without much enthusiasm. “Sleep well.”

“You too!” Rey got up and edged past him to get to the floor, and halfway down the Hall she felt… as if something was prickling up the back of her neck.  _ I’m being watched.  _ She wondered if someone had set a hex on her as a joke, but as she turned to see, the only pair of eyes focused on her were Solo’s, and he wore an expression as if he was furious that she dared to leave the Hall.

_ Bugger off, _ she thought rudely, and turned away, making her way back to the stairs to make the long, cold trek up to the sixth floor.

* * *

Her rooms weren’t terribly drafty, but they were chilly in the winter, especially when it was wet. Rey took a bath and changed for bed: her thick slippers kept out the chill from the cold floor and a quick Heating Charm in the room took care of the rest. 

She really did like her rooms here. It certainly beat her flat in London: she had a beautiful arched window that looked over the lake in her study where her extra desk and her bookshelf was, and her bedroom had a window-seat that looked over the Forbidden Forest. Even her kitchen was cosy, with stone walls and a kettle and cupboard, and the bathroom held a sort of antique Victorian flair, with a large enameled tub and copper pipes. Rey combed out her hair and dried it off, sipping steaming tea and going over the lesson plan for tomorrow one more time...

Shaking herself awake suddenly, she felt groggy and dazed. The clock read midnight, and she’d been thinking her World War Two module was for the first years, but it wasn’t… that was fourth years. “First years get… Thomas Edison,” she mumbled, looking at the window. Pitch-black darkness met her eyes, and she shuddered, thinking of Things Looking In At Her and standing to draw the drapes. Her alarm was set anyway. Why was she—

  
Rey blinked. The Forbidden Forest was alight. Not with fire, but with something blue-silver, glowing so brightly down below in the thick trees she couldn’t make it out.  _ Has a unicorn got loose? _ She rubbed her eyes and tried to peer through the rain, but the light faded and went out even as she tried to catch a glimpse of it. “What on earth…” she mumbled, turning away. “I’m sleepwalking. I must be. Good night.” She crawled up onto her bed and shut her eyes, letting sleep take her again as the rain pattered on.


	2. The Averys

The next morning, the rain had stopped, leaving a pale blue, freshly washed sky hanging overhead as Rey rushed to class, tugging her bag of parchment and graded essays along with her. The late autumn air was brisk enough to wake her up as she hurried down to her classroom for her eight AM class with her fourth years. 

“Good morning, class!” she chirped, stepping across the threshold and tossing her wand into the bucket with the others. 

“Good morning, Professor Nieman,” they responded loudly, heads turning to look at her. A few students crumpled up notes and hid them, giggling as they turned to face the front. She marched to her desk and the blackboard and set her bag down, whipping out her chalk and writing  _ World War Two _ on the board. 

“World War Two,” she said as she wrote it. “Also known here in Britain as the Second World War: either works. Can anyone who was raised in a non-magical home tell me one event that happened during the war?”

* * *

As her class filed out, she noted a shadow in the door, lingering, and inwardly sighed: more parents, no doubt, coming to complain about her class. “Come in,” she called, turning to busy herself with cleaning the blackboard.

A balding, older man in long black robes and his wife, a younger woman with perfect blonde waves, stepped through the door wearing sour expressions, and she recognized them immediately from the last month’s meeting: Alectia and Marcellius Avery, father to Jacen, Karyna, and Coriolanus, who were in first year, third year, and sixth year— in that order. “Miss Nieman,” said Marcellius politely as he glided in, Alectia in tow with her nose slightly turned up as if the room smelled. “So nice to be able to catch you between classes.”

“It’s Professor,” said Rey just as politely, stacking her essays, “and my door’s always open as long as it doesn’t interfere with class, Mr. Avery. How can I help you?”

“Well, that’s the thing. About these classes. The coursework. We got such an interesting owl from Cory that we just  _ had _ to drop in for a moment,” said Alectia, her blue-gray eyes gleaming. “It’s just so  _ odd, _ you know, these themes you’re teaching our children. About Muggles being superior to wizards.”

Rey forced herself to smile. “I’ve never once made such a generalization, Mrs. Avery. I’ve clearly stated in the syllabus and in the coursework that both non-magical people and magical people can do amazing things, and terrible things. If Coriolanus is indeed getting that I believe non-magical people are superior from my course, then he may need some comprehension lessons. Would you like me to give you a reference? I know an excellent tutor in London he can attend. Very discreet.”

“A Muggle tutor, no doubt,” said Marcellius, eyes narrowed.

Rey tamped down her irritation in favor of a pasted-on smile. “I don’t class my extracurricular aides based on whether or not they can perform magic, Mr. Avery. I class them based on their expertise and knowledge in the field I recommend them for.”

“How could a Muggle have expertise in  _ any _ field?” snapped Alectia. “It’s ludicrous. You can’t make my children learn this nonsense and then hold them back from graduating because they’re not parroting this— this politically correct rhetoric to your liking.”

“If you’re concerned about your children’s grades, you’d best speak to Headmaster Kanata,” said Rey. “I don’t sign the paperwork upon graduation: she does. And she also signs off on all my lesson plans.” She rather wished she had a briefcase to authoritatively snap shut, or perhaps a long, elegant cloak to swish as she turned away. The wool jumper and sturdy brown boots she wore were decidedly unassuming.

Alectia looked furious. All that cold veneer of politeness had washed away. “I don’t pay for my children to be brainwashed!”

Rey blinked. “You don’t pay at all. This is Britain. Magical education is free.”

“Don’t you get clever with my wife, young woman,” snarled Marcellius. “I  _ will _ be speaking to the headmaster, mark my words, _and_ to the Board of Governors of the school.” He stormed out in a whirl of robes, his wife in tow, and Rey sat down heavily at her desk, exhaling like she’d just run a race.

“That went well,” said a dry, cold voice from the door, and she jerked up, startled, to see Solo gliding in, regarding her with something between condescension and sternness. 

“Do you need something, Professor?” she said sharply, stung that he’d been lurking about. “I thought you had classes to teach.”

“I do, Professor. At ten. Which is in an hour, in case you forgot how time works. But thank you for keeping track of my schedule for me.”

Rey felt consternation rush her face. “I  _ don’t _ — keep track of—”

“The Averys are a very old family.” He swept in as if he owned the classroom, looking at her paraphernalia: drain stoppers, rubber gloves, a wheelchair, an ancient phonograph next to a modern Bluetooth speaker. “Very old wizarding nobility. One of the Twenty-Eight, actually. Alectia has a brother who works in the Ministry. The family can trace their lineage back to the eleventh century.”

“If I wanted a genealogy lecture, I’d go to the library,” said Rey, still ruffled. 

His dark eyes flickered down across her. “I’m sure. All this to say that they’ve never been met with such defiance before in their lives, and no doubt they’ll take the rest of term to get over the shock.”

Rey almost choked. Was he… giving her a compliment? “Let’s hope they recover elsewhere, and not in the headmaster’s office.”

“Hm. Indeed.” Solo turned and left without a parting word, leaving Rey sitting at her desk with her mouth slightly open as she tried to pull herself together.

* * *

“Professor Nieman, a word?” called Professor Iji, hurrying to catch her elbow as she left the Great Hall after lunch. She checked herself and almost fell over her own feet trying to stop.

“Oh! Yes, Finn, what’s the matter?” 

“Nothing, only—” He tugged her aside into an alcove, away from students’ listening ears, and pitched his warm voice low. “Look. I won’t beat round the bush. Heard the Averys got up to Kanata’s office and ran her through the gauntlet about Muggle Studies.”

Her heart sank. “Don’t tell me she backed down!”

“What, Maz Kanata, back down? No. Only that you might do well to not be so… confrontational when parents, uh, come in to see the class. And—someone said they saw Solo leaving your classroom right after. What was he doing in there?”

She sighed. “Lurking about. Came in to— I think it was supposed to be a sort of compliment, if you can believe that. He heard the conversation and said they’d never get over the shock of being stood up to.”

Finn snorted. “Solo said that? To  _ you _ ? I didn’t think the man was capable of even recognizing other professors have things to do.”

“So I heard. Imagine my surprise.”

“But look, Rey, really—” He sighed. “Watch out around him. He’s got connections high up, and he’s nobody’s friend.”

“Dameron said he was from some family of Dark Wizards or something. American?”

“I don’t know for sure,” said Finn, looking evasive. “Just rumors. Something about a family member being terribly instrumental on the wrong side of the Cold War. You know he attended Durmstrang for a few terms early on?”

“No,” sad Rey, horrified and fascinated. “Really? An American at Durmstrang?”

“Yeah. Got expelled, from what I heard.”

“What the hell d’you have to do to get expelled from  _ Durmstrang _ ?” 

“I don’t even want to know. Look, just be on the lookout, all right? I don’t want you saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and losing your job here.” Finn’s eyes were warm and earnest, and Rey nodded quickly, resolved.

“No, I will. Promise.”

* * *

It wasn’t until that night that she remembered she’d had a dream the night before: something about the Forbidden Forest, but she couldn’t recall a single detail as she sank into sleep, thinking about the next day’s lesson plans.


	3. The Forbidden Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE HAVE FANART, I AM NOT WORTHY. Click here to see reylographer's amazing drawing of Rey and Solo: https://twitter.com/reylographer/status/1358595019993739266

September ended, and October came on in full, blustery force: the rain was intermittent, the sky was blue when it felt like it, and the excitement of the upcoming Halloween feast filled everyone with anticipation. Rey Nieman received an angry owl that tried to peck at her when it dropped off a note, and the note turned out to be a Howler: she thanked everything that was for the good luck that it was in her private rooms when she got it, because being called a “no-good, grasping little muggle-born” by the screeching voice of yet another angry parent was not something she wished to undergo in front of anyone.

At the end of the last week before Halloween, she came upon one of her fifth years sitting in the back of the room and sobbing quietly into her arms as class filed out. “Miss Miller? Whatever’s wrong?” she asked gently, kneeling down by the desk.

“Nothing,” sobbed Hannah Miller, wiping tears from her blotchy, red eyes. “No, I’m f-fine, Professor, I just— I—” Her face screwed up again, and she burst into sobs. “I’m going to fail D.A.D.A, I just know I am— Solo’s so  _ mean _ and I can’t get a thing right, I feel like a moron walking into the door and he’s trying to m-make us all do wandless magic and it’s impossible, and what if it’s on our OWLs? What am I going to do if I get a P or a D or even a T— I’ll fail everything, my parents will be so upset—”

Righteous indignation filled Rey. “What on  _ earth— _ wandless magic’s hard for even advanced adults to master, and it’s only October! He’s got no business forcing you to do that, and of course it oughtn’t to be on the OWLs at all. And don’t be so upset, Hannah, I promise you aren’t going to fail your OWLs. You’re a brilliant student, and you’ll do splendidly. There’s no reason at all you won’t get an E or A in Defense.”

“You’re sure?” wailed Hannah, tears still streaming. 

“Absolutely.” Rey offered her a hankie, and she blew her nose. “Keep it, Miller. And honestly— if this sort of thing keeps up I’ll speak to the headmaster. That’s really just— mad. You do your best. There’s no shame in not mastering advanced things at the age of fourteen.”

“Thanks, Professor,” wept Hannah, and pulled herself together with a few deep breaths before giving Rey a quick hug and hurrying out to her Potions class. 

_ The absolute gall of him! _ Rey paced back up to her desk, fuming. Wandless magic for fifth-years? What was Solo thinking? Of course, small children often performed magic without wands, purely by accident, and different cultures relied on hand movements as opposed to the use of wands— but asking European wizards who’d learned to channel magic through their wands since they were eleven to unlearn it in a few weeks was mad.  _ I ought to give him a piece of my mind… _ but she’d promised Finn she’d keep her distance, and anyway, he hadn’t tried to speak to her in weeks. Not since the incident with the Averys, anyway.

* * *

She woke Friday, October thirtieth, with a perfectly horrible cold, and sent owls canceling her classes for the day as she puttered over to her kitchenette and made steaming lemon-honey tea in her slippers, her nose streaming.  Of course, a quick trip to the hospital wing would have set her straight, but it didn’t seem right for her to be reliant on magical means when cold medicine would do the trick.  _ Besides, I’m the Muggle Studies professor. I have to use Muggle remedies… _ She sneezed and opened her window, letting cold fresh air blow in and stir the room. “I’m going back to bed,” she croaked at the wall, and shuffled off to the bedroom, her head pounding.

Rey opened her eyes what seemed like only moments later, disoriented and stuffy, her throat on fire and her mouth tasting like pennies. The evening had fallen, and her room was dark. Rey reached out and flicked her wand, muttering “ _ lumos” _ before even thinking, and sat up, dizzy and sweat-drenched as soft light filled the room. Something didn’t feel right.

Her bedroom looked perfectly ordinary. The cup of tea had gone cold on her nightstand. She blinked and looked around: a pile of robes that needed washing, her rumpled comforter, the items on her dresser were all the same as she had left them. 

What was wrong with her window?

“ _ Nox,” _ she whispered, and the light inside the room vanished, leaving her in darkness and showing the faintest gleam of bluish light from outside. Rey staggered up and rushed to the window, throwing it wide and bracing herself against the chill as the October night invaded. Something was in the Forbidden Forest. Something was moving toward the castle, glowing through the leaves, indistinct. She coughed harshly, wincing at the pain in her chest.

Memory came streaking back: the attack during the Wizarding War, Death Eaters creeping up. Rey had only been eight— old enough to be rushed down into the basement to hide.  _ I have to protect the school, _ she thought wildly, grasping her wand, and stumbled to the door without even stopping to put on her cloak.

* * *

The Forest was dark and foreboding, even near the castle. Once the outer lawns by the gamekeeper’s hut were behind, the trees closed in thick and fast, blocking out the moonlight above. Rey kept on doggedly, her wand lit up just brightly enough to light her way, and staggered over roots and rocks, heading further in. Her nose would not stop running, and she sneezed several times, shivering. 

_ I have to protect Hogwarts. _ Why hadn’t anyone raised the alarm? Why was she so cold? She pushed on, coughing, and tripped over a tree root, smearing her hands and knees with dirt. Her head was threatening to split. That light— where was it? Had she lost it? She got back to her feet and extinguished her wand, drowning in the dark as she looked both ways.

_ There! _ Just a few hundred feet ahead, there was a glimmer of pale blue through the trees, illuminating them like black paper cutouts void of depth as she squinted. Shivering, Rey pressed on and on, her hand gripped around her wand so tightly she thought the red oak might snap. “ _ Quietus,” _ she said, and her feet made no noise at all as she walked over the forest floor. 

As she reached the edge of a hollow, she hung back a moment, trying to stop her teeth from clacking together. Below, in the little valley, a man in dark robes was walking, his back to her and his wand raised high, emitting a pale blue light as he muttered to himself. 

_ A Death Eater! _ Rey raised her wand and gasped out, “ _ Expelliarmus!” _ The wand went flying, the light gone out, and she raised her own with a shriek of “ _ Lumos maxima!” _ which flooded the whole hollow in bright, shadowless white, casting light on a face—

A face she thought she knew—

She sneezed.

“Professor Nieman!” shouted a voice, and she tripped on a root, woozy from her exertions, and went tumbling down the side of the dell. Someone shouted _A_ _ rresto momentum!  _ and she slowed, lowering lightly down on the floor of the forest. She struggled to move: how had the Death Eater used a spell without a wand? How…

A light appeared at the tip of a wand, illuminating her enemy: a man with a stern expression, long face, and furious eyes.  _ Where’s his tattoo? _ she thought wildly, reaching for dirt to throw at him. “Get off me! Get off!” Her wand was stuck underneath her. She’d dropped it when she’d fallen.

Solo ignored her attempts at self-defense and instead barked, “What the  _ hell _ are you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night!”

“Death Eater,” Rey gasped, kicking at him. “Saw… lights. From the w-window.” Her teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. “Attack. Hogwarts. Have to r-raise th-the alarm—”

Something in his face seemed to relax. “There are no Death Eaters, Professor.” A hand reached down, ostensibly to lift her to her feet, but he paused, gripping her shoulders. “You’re burning up. You need the hospital wing.” Her wand was pressed back into her hand.

“N-no,” she protested. “No, there’s, you’re— Death Eater. Have to p-protect the castle.” She coughed, hoarse and wracking, and Solo’s nose wrinkled.

_“Accio_ wand." A light smack of wood on flesh sounded. "You’re delirious. Is this why all my students had an extra hour of study hall today?”

“S-sent owls,” managed Rey, shivering so badly she could hardly speak. “D-don’t-t-take me to th-the wing. I have t-to use n-non-m-magical remedies…”

“That,” he said decisively, “is not part of the code of conduct at Hogwarts. I’m taking you back. Stand up.”

Rey wobbled up on legs that felt weak, all the adrenaline that had powered her journey through the Forest drained out of her body. She took a step and half-collapsed against a tree. “I c-can’t, you— you stupid— why were y-you out here, then, huh?”

He sighed. She felt a swish of robe, and then a huge, warm wool cloak settled around her, smelling of cedar and woodsmoke as Solo tucked it about her in a very businesslike way before hoisting her into his arms. Rey let out a shriek of indignation. “Oi! Put me  _ down!” _

When Solo spoke, he sounded bored. “You just said you’re incapable of walking. Be it far from me to leave a peer to perish in the forest.”

“I don’t know. You s-seem capable of quite a lot of horrid things,” she ground out, hiding her cold face in a fold of cloak. 

“Do I? Very good. Can’t get half these students to learn unless I scare them to death.”

“There are about a million other ways to teach aside from— from unrealistic expectations and using, using  _ fear _ as a weapon,” Rey snapped, glaring up at him. She could only see his jawline and the silhouette of his large nose against the light his wand gave off. 

“No doubt there are. And there’s nothing unrealistic about my expectations.” Was that an edge in his tone she detected? She’d press on.

“Yes, there are. Hannah Miller was sobbing her eyes out in my classroom last week, saying you were demanding they perform wandless magic. Not just learn about it,  _ perform _ it.”

“I am surprised,” he said coolly, “that someone as open-minded and culturally aware as yourself doesn’t think a gaggle of children who’ve been using nonverbal magic for the first eleven years of their life and wanded magic for the next… four, are incapable of relearning it. You are aware I have many children from Indian and African backgrounds in my classes, yes? I’m sure they’re in yours, too.”

Rey’s mouth hung open in indignation. “I— but—”

Solo’s tone had turned a little darker. “And that many of their family cultures indeed make no use of wands at all? And that half of them don’t even use wands when they go home for holidays?”

“That doesn’t mean every child in your fifth-year class is capable of—”

“Of  _ course _ not every child is capable of consistent, targeted, meaningful spell-casting without a wand,” he snapped, stepping over a large log and jostling her slightly. “But every single one of them ought to have a background in  _ trying _ so that if they’re disarmed temporarily they will have the option, Professor Nieman.”

“Hannah Miller was crying her eyes out!”

“Hannah Miller is an excellent Transfiguration student, and an even better Potions student. She will, absent some crisis, receive an O in every OWL she takes apart from Defense Against the Dark Arts. If she gets an A in mine, she will still be able to take an Arithmancy or Muggle Studies NEWT in seventh year.”

“You,” said Rey with some difficulty at keeping her temper, “have completely forgotten what it’s like to be a student here, Professor Solo. You could do with some basic empathy.”

“Empathy,” said Solo, his strides lengthening as they began to reach more even ground, “will not prepare students for the adult world, Professor Nieman. Children cannot be told that they will excel in every field they enter. That is unrealistic. Realism is accepting that one may excel in a few select areas and not in all. Don’t you think my students who already engage in using wandless magic are glad for a chance to be graded on something they can excel in? Or is that pushing the limits of your _empathy_?”

“Do  _ not _ imply I’m prejudiced,” she spat. “Put me down  _ right now, _ Professor.”

He scoffed and kept walking. “I’m implying no such thing. I think Hannah Miller reminds you of yourself. She even resembles you a little, doesn’t she? Brown hair. Mousy. Tendency to lash out when she feels she’s been personally offended. Have you ever seen her trying to jinx girls laughing at her about her braces?”

Rey could not believe her ears. “I’m going to pretend I’m having fever-induced hallucinations and that you did  _ not _ just call me mousy and prickly.”

“Are you? Good. In fact, this whole conversation ought to likely be forgotten. As should the events of this whole night.” 

Rey weighed the struggle of getting him to drop her against the long, cold walk on knocking knees to the hospital wing, and decided to let him carry on. “I’m glad I promised Finn I wouldn’t talk to you anymore,” she hissed, and was gratified to see something flicker across his long, sour face. 

“I’m sorry Professor Iji made you promise such a thing. How unprofessional. Faculty ought to be able to speak to each other freely.”

This was too much. “He didn’t—  _ make me _ do anything!” Her head really was aching horribly. “You’ve no idea what  _ friends _ are, do you? You don’t have a single one, so let me enlighten you: it’s when people have each other’s backs and help each other in life. Encouragement. Support. That sort of thing.” She coughed again and shivered violently. “You wouldn’t… know how to be a friend if the book about it slapped you in the—”

“I’d caution you about being overly familiar with your peers,” he said tightly, marching along. They must be nearing the gates, because warm light was faintly glowing on his face. “You wouldn’t want someone starting rumors.”

“Ru— rumors about  _ what _ exactly?” demanded Rey as they passed under the courtyard arch. “Finn and I are friends— we’ve been friends for years. Nobody would ever think otherwise.”

“Good to hear. It would be a shame if someone got the wrong idea and reported either of you to the Ministry.”

Fury hot enough to blank out the fever for a moment rose in her chest. “You say a word about my friendships with anyone,” she spat, “and I’ll tell everyone I know you were out in the Forbidden Forest. I’m sure your reputation pre-precedes you, and people can make their own conclusions as to what you were doing out there. How’s that sound,  _ Professor _ ?”

Solo went the white-yellow color of parchment and marched her into the castle, speaking not a word until they reached the hospital wing. “Good evening, Madame Kalonia,” he said politely, his jaw as rigid as steel as he set her down on a bed. “Professor Nieman was wandering the grounds in a state of delirium. She has a high fever and a bad cold.”

“I hope you catch it,” Rey croaked, glaring up at him as he withdrew with both of his hands clenched at his sides in tight, massive fists. Madame Kalonia hurried over, tugging a screen along to give her some privacy. The only other occupants of the hospital wing were a fourth-year who’d managed to somehow misuse a Revealing Charm and consequently had the skin on his left arm removed, and a green-faced second-year who was coughing up slugs into a bucket. 

“You see,” said Solo calmly. “Delirious.” 

“Indeed. Thank you for bringing her here, Professor. I don’t suppose you’d take a look at poor Mr. Hopkins a moment? I tried a Regrowth Charm, but his skin simply refuses to come back.” Kalonia turned to Rey, bustling about as Solo stepped away, and began to check her over. “Dear me, Professor,” she muttered as she waved her wand over Rey. “Looks like a dreadful cough, congestion, fever—”

“I just need some NyQuil,” Rey mumbled.

“Nye— quill? Why on earth would you need to write anything?” Kalonia clucked her tongue and pulled out a bottle of reddish liquid from a cabinet and poured her a cup. “You certainly are in a state. Drink up. Some Cold-No-More will have you right as rain in a moment. You can spend the night here.”

“I have… lessons,” Rey protested as Kalonia held the cup to her lips. 

_"V_ _ ulnera sanentur, _ "  chanted Solo from behind the screen.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday, dear, and it’s Halloween.”

“Oh.”

“ _ Owww _ _!_ ” shrieked the fourth-year boy. Rey turned her head to see, just past the screen, Solo sternly waving his wand at the writhing student’s arm, his skin growing back rapidly from shoulder to fingertips. “It  _ tickles!” _

Solo ignored the boy and turned a little. “Your mistake, Madame Kalonia, was using a Regrowth Charm and not using a countermeasure to the charm itself.”

“Oh, of course.” Kalonia clapped her hand to her head. “Appreciated, Professor.”

Rey closed her eyes, feeling nauseated, and drifted off.


	4. The Hallowe'en Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vomiting in this one, brief mention toward the end of the chapter

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” said Dameron the next morning at breakfast as he shoveled pancakes into his mouth. “Heard you really had a nasty cold.”

“Oh, awful,” Rey told him, pouring herself more English Breakfast tea and a nice helping of sausage and toast. “I recall asking Madame Kalonia for NyQuil and she said ‘what do you need to write for?’” 

Poe hid a snort. “Oh, Lord. You know, I have a jar of Vicks in my room. I’d  _ gladly  _ loan it to you next time.”

Laughter burst from her throat. “Come off it!”

“No, really. Cures everything. Better than magic, my mother always claimed. You just grease up your whole chest and neck, and—” Poe stopped short as a shadow fell across the table, and Rey looked up, her heart sinking into her stomach. Solo was—  _ looming,  _ there was really no better word for it— over them, his expression unreadable. 

“Professor Nieman,” he said shortly.

“Professor Solo,” she shot back, her nape prickling unpleasantly. 

“It seems that you are much improved. Apparently Muggle remedies pale in comparison to Madame Kalonia.”

She wondered if she could get away with kicking him under the table. “Professor Dameron was just telling me of an old family cure. Perhaps I’ll try it next time I come down with a perfectly ordinary cold, instead of wasting Madame Kalonia’s time. She was quite preoccupied. How  _ is _ Tony Hopkins?”

A muscle twitched beneath Solo’s impassive eye. “Mr. Hopkins is entirely cured, as far as I am aware, and has learned a valuable lesson about correctly aiming one’s wand when casting a Revealing Charm.” 

“I hope so,” said Dameron, angling for some humor. “He’s one of the best young Seekers the Hufflepuff team has. First match is mid-November. Shame if they had to play with a Seeker with a skinned arm.”

Solo’s nostrils flared as he drew his attention to Dameron, and his tone became biting and cold. “If only Mr. Hopkins’ arm was the factor deciding the success of the match.” Rey wondered why the sudden hostility, and suddenly thought: what if he was afraid that she’d blab about his presence in the Forest the previous night, and what must have been several nights before it? 

Poe was, as always, unflappable. “Ah, it’s important to the kids. They’re not all gonna go direct from Hogwarts to the Chudley Cannons.”

Solo’s eyes narrowed. “No, that much is very clear. At least we may hope that all this cavorting on broomsticks results in as few broken arms and legs as possible. Good morning.” He turned in a swirl of his cloak, and Rey let out a breath, exchanging a stunned look with Dameron.

“What was that all about?” he asked, his dark eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled, rubbing her temples. “No, I suppose I can’t make something up, so—I was a bit out of my mind last night and wandered off into the grounds. He found me and hauled me back to the hospital wing— by the scruff of my neck, nearly.”

Poe’s brows went from raised to furrowed. “What was he doing on the grounds?”

How she  _ wanted _ to say it: to tell the absolute truth, to tell him exactly what Solo had been doing— muddling around deep in the Forest, no doubt looking for something sinister. It came, then, as a shock to hear herself saying with utter boredom, “Oh, taking a walk. Up by the gamekeeper’s hut.”

“Probably lurking about looking for students to eat alive,” joked Poe. “I’d better get my broomsticks polished up for Monday. See you at the feast tonight, then?”

“Oh, why not,” said Rey, finishing her tea and trying to shove aside the tiny voice in her head that could not believe she’d just protected Solo. “Don’t expect to see me in fancy dress, though.”

“What? Come on. Times are changing around here. Muggle customs— sorry,  _ non-magic _ customs are encouraged for feasts.” He grinned. “I’m coming as Dracula. You  _ are  _ the Muggle Studies teacher, you know. You do have to participate. It would be the right thing to do, set an example.”

Shaking her head, Rey laughed in spite of herself. “Okay. I might do something, then.  _ Might. _ You get a might.”

“Yes!” Dameron fist-pumped. “Iji’s coming as the Phantom of the Opera. You’ll love it.”

* * *

Her lesson planning for the next week complete, Rey decided to put on her wellies and slog out to the shore of the lake for a bit of light reading before the Halloween feast. The cold wind still nipped at her cheeks, but her perfectly serviceable jacket kept her warm even without a charm. She cracked open her volume of  _ Wizards Worldwide: An Exhaustive Encyclopedia _ and started chapter five, which was all about the wizarding history of China, practices of  _ wu,  _ and divination. 

Lost in a fascinating study of how Buddhism had influenced modern Chinese wizarding practices, she didn’t even notice she wasn’t alone until the sound of a throat clearing broke through her reverie. Rey looked up and almost fell over. Solo was looming six feet away, staring at her. “Wh—”

“Don’t get up on my account,” he said sharply, swathed in his outdoor cloak. It was dark gray wool, covering him from throat to ankle, and he wore a black knitted scarf. His face looked strangely pale— maybe it was just the contrast between his skin and the dark clothing he wore.

“Did you need something?” asked Rey, on her guard.

His dark eyes narrowed. “No. Only to express that I am... surprised you did not mention the circumstances of last night to Professor Dameron.”

She clapped her book shut, her temper rising. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone? “Would you prefer I amend that? I can go in right now and—”

“ _ No, _ ” Solo barked, and was it her imagination, or was that…  _ fear _ on his inscrutable face, if only for a moment? “No. That is not necessary.”

_ He really, really doesn’t want anyone to know he was in the Forest.  _ Rey filed that aside for a moment as she squinted up at him in the chilly breeze, and noted there were dark circles beneath his eyes. “All right. So you came out here to be surprised at me. Anything else?”

There was a long pause as Solo took her in. “You’re upset,” he said finally. “As you have a right to be.”

“You know, after you left, he asked me why you were out in the first place last night,” Rey shot back quickly. She waited for Solo’s face to drain of color before she continued, feeling just a little pang of guilty satisfaction. “I told him you were walking about by the gamekeeper’s hut.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “And don’t you think for a moment I appreciate feeling as if I’ve got to lie to my friends or academic peers for  _ you _ .”

“Of course not,” he said, stepping closer. The wind caught a fold of his cloak and snapped it out, flapping, and Rey could see that his fingers, ungloved, were clenched into tight fists at his sides. “Apologies. I— I am in your debt.”

“That’s for bloody certain,” she said, and opened her book again. “Well. Unless you want to listen to me mumble to myself about the way  _ wu _ was influenced by esoteric Buddhism during the late Ming dynasty, I don’t see a reason for you to hang about.”

“No. Of course not.” He turned on his heel, and she noted that he seemed to catch himself as he strode away, as if something was wrong with his legs, but he pulled himself up and kept marching on, back to the walls of the castle.

* * *

At six on the dot, the Halloween feast began. The Great Hall’s vaulted ceiling had been enchanted to look like a cloud-swept night sky, complete with enormous full moon half-shrouded in wisps of cloud. Jack-o’ lanterns floated above the tables, the candles within burning in red, orange, and gold flame guttering as bats whizzed by in swarms.

Rey had hastily looked through her trunk and found an old white dressing gown with ruffles on it, then teased her hair to pile atop her head and used a quick Color-Change Charm to put a silver streak through it before joining Dameron and Iji at the head table. “Bride of Frankenstein,” she explained, smiling as Iji pretended to doff his hat and bow. The white mask stood out marvelously against his costume, giving it the appearance of something floating.

“You should have come as Christine Daae! We could have been a set!”

“I forgot! The afternoon just got away from me.” She laughed as she took her seat and glanced over at Dameron, who was hurrying up with a cape drawn across his nose in an exaggerated gesture. “Oh, dear. Dracula has arrived, I see.”

“You have guessed correctly, my dear Professor Nieman,” intoned Dameron in a low and sonorous voice. “Ah-ha-ha.”

“Oh, look at the kids,” said Finn, grinning as he gazed out over the tables. About three-quarters of the children in the hall were in fancy dress costumes, and excitedly talking over each other. 

One Gryffindor prefect boy near the head table was explaining Muggle customs to a group of fascinated first-years, who appeared to all have been raised strictly wizarding. “So then you walk to your neighbors houses and they give you sweets! Used to be if you didn’t, right, then you’d have to do a silly prank, like fill their tree with toilet paper, or—”

“That’s quite enough, Mr. Knightley,” said a low, black voice, and Rey glanced over to see Solo, of all people, sternly looking down at the little group. The prefect shrank down and seemed to go pale. “You’ll absolutely not be filling the young ones’ heads with ideas of how to vandalize property. Thank you.”

“Yes, sir, Professor Solo,” mumbled Knightley. "Sorry."

“Why is  _ he  _ here?” whispered Dameron to Iji as Solo swept up to the high table, taking his seat on the other side of the headmaster’s podium without a word. 

“Dunno. We’ll just say he came as another vampire,” Rey whispered. If anything, his gait was worse: he seemed to be actively limping, and there was no color in his face at all, but she was afraid to say anything in front of Poe or Finn. “Or a bat.”

“A bat!” Iji found that hysterical. “Don’t make me choke, Nieman. Let’s look at the menu, then.”

Rey picked up her gilt-edged, black paper menu printed in delicate gold script. They really had outdone themselves in the kitchen: there were two courses, plus dessert, with three options each to choose from. “Ooh, would you look at this?” she told Iji.

The headmaster bounded up to the podium. Maz Kanata was hardly five feet tall— some said she must be part goblin, or dwarf or something, but her figure was no less imposing as she stared out into the Hall. “Good evening!” she shouted, her warm, cheerful voice echoing out over the room.

“Good evening, Headmaster!” shouted the students in response.

“I welcome you all to our one thousand, four hundred and seventy-eigth annual Hallowe’en Feast! Afterward, please note curfew has been lifted till midnight, since tomorrow is a Sunday. As always, the Forbidden Forest is off-limits, but you may stroll about the grounds if you please: there may be some surprises waiting to be found. With that: let the feast begin!” She sat back down to applause.

Rey looked back at her menu and spoke aloud her choices as everyone else in the room did the same. “I’ll have the goat’s cheese ravioli on roast squash with pumpkin veloute and pumpkin seed granola, and the roast lamb croquette on black rice risotto with mixed greens, garlic, parmesan, mushrooms and lamb jus, please. Oh, and all three desserts, just to try. And pumpkin juice and Butterbeer. Thank you.”

Her choices appeared on her plate immediately, steaming and fragrant, and she took a moment to admire the presentation of the desserts: spiced pumpkin brulee with glazed apple and shortbread, a black cherry and almond tart with cream, and a dark chocolate mousse garnished with chocolate bark and berries. Iji had picked spinach and mushroom biryani with curried carrots, and Poe was already digging into smoked duck, pumpkin puree, and blood orange jelly. “I don’t know how they’ll possibly measure up next year,” he said, delighted.

She laughed around her mouthful of food. “That was what you said last year when we had that white cheddar and potato soup, wasn’t it? With those rosemary black bread bowls?”

“Mmm,” said Finn, rolling his eyes heavenward as he started in on the biryani. “I heard there’ll be a cocktail hour for faculty in the old Slug Club room, up on the second floor. You didn’t hear it from me, though.” He winked.

Rey beamed through a mouthful of ravioli. “Not a word from me,” she said, somewhat muffled, and started back in on her food. Thoughts of finally getting to speak to Professor Tekka about whether he thought the I Ching was a pertinent divination method and how it crossed from non-magic to magic communities swept through her head. She might even get to finally chat with Professor D’Acy, no longer as a student, but as a peer, about how wizarding history had affected non-magical history and vice versa— apart from brief encounters in the staff room, she rarely got the chance to socialize with the rest of the faculty. A quick glance down the head table assured her that her costume wouldn’t be in poor taste— Professor Holdo, head of Gryffindor House, who had taught Astronomy for the past thirty years, was gleefully wearing a paper crown on her lavender curls and a long, glittery polyester cape covered in purple sequins as she chatted with Professor Taliesin Lintra, who appeared to have come as Rowena Ravenclaw. Lintra was several years Rey’s elder, with early silver-gray streaks through her thick blond hair, and had an engaging charm that Rey felt she could never attain, along with perfectly tailored robes and matching hats in contrast to Rey’s shabby jumpers and scarves.

_ It’s not even about the clothes, either, _ Rey thought, savoring the risotto. Taliesin Lintra came from a very old magical family in Wales that could trace their ancestry right back to Bran the Blessed’s sister Branwen, who had invented all on her own how to send messages by bird—she had used a sparrow, while the ancient British warlocks, at some later point, had begun to use owls. Rey had been born to a non-magical family in Kent, receiving her letter to Hogwarts on her eleventh birthday amid plastic cereal bowls and a shrieking old kettle while her bewildered parents looked on in confusion. 

They’d really always known she was odd. Different. Not exactly normal. Rey could still remember being about six and finding herself transported up to the roof of the council estate while trying to get away from a cat she was afraid of, and after she’d started at Hogwarts they’d just sort of… let her go. Morose tears filled her eyes as she chewed on her garlicky mushrooms, but Poe and Finn were deep in a conversation about something and didn’t even notice.  _ It’s okay. I made it just fine without them.  _ Having to spend all her holidays at school past fourth year hadn’t been that bad, she thought as she dashed her eyes clear of tears. Finn had been there for quite a few of them, and they’d had great fun roaming all over the castle and exploring together, but the rest of the holidays...  _ Stop it this moment, _ she thought angrily at herself, looking at her warped reflection in the golden goblet of pumpkin juice sitting at her plate. 

She didn’t look like any sort of Bride of Frankenstein, or a bride of anybody. She just looked like a frumpy, wide-mouthed teacher too young to be taken seriously wearing a shabby old lace robe. “Excuse me,” she said quietly, and didn’t bother to look back and see Poe’s concerned expression as she hurried away from the high table and into the entrance hall, fighting tears the whole way until she’d crossed into the staff room, which was blessedly silent and smelled of Mrs. Mulliper’s Magical Moth-Repellent. A fire was crackling cheerily along the far wall, a couch sitting in front of it with its upholstered back to her, and the other chairs were all empty.

Rey flung herself into an overstuffed loveseat and took a few deep breaths. She couldn’t cry and go back out with her face all red and grubby, so she had to get a hold of herself instead.  _ My students are out there having supper,  _ she thought, taking in a few shaky gasps. “Get a bloody grip,” she muttered, looking at the wall tapestries. “You’re twenty-three. You’re a teacher now. You’re not twelve anymore, you’ve got your own flat to go home to for holidays—”

“Oh, is that what all this is about?” asked a low, strained voice from the fireplace. Rey leaped to her feet with a shriek, whipping out her wand and pointing it as a shape rose up from the sofa, a head silhouetted in black facing her. “For a moment, I thought I would have to go ask Iji or Dameron what they said to get you so upset. We could use a good honor duel around here, don’t you think? Entertainment value.”

“What in the name of God are you even  _ doing _ in here?” snapped Rey, cheeks aflame. “I almost hexed you!”

Solo raised himself to a standing position, leaning against the arm of the sofa. “Drinking,” he said shortly, and then she saw what she’d missed: an empty cut-glass decanter and tumbler of Firewhiskey at his elbow, resting on the table. 

“When— when did you leave the Hall? I didn’t—”

“Before the meal started. After the speech. No doubt you missed me, as you were occupied with food, as was everyone else in the—” Solo made a sharp, unbalanced movement, and his elbow knocked into the decanter, sending both it and the glass shattering to the floor. He didn’t even flinch. “Damn,” he said, sounding drained.

Rey waved her wand with a quiet “ _ reparo”  _ and the pieces flew back together. “You can’t drink all that on an empty stomach,” she told him, flummoxed as to why he was even back here. 

“Watch me,” he said, waving a hand. “What are we at, now? Two to one?”

“What?”

“Two secrets of mine you have to keep, and I’ve only got one of yours. I won’t tell anyone you were in here crying if you won’t… say I was drunk at a feast.”

“Tell anyone you like. I don’t care.” Rey put her hands on her hips. “You had better go out the back way if you want to keep any credibility with your students. I can’t imagine seeing their terrifying D.A.D.A. teacher eight sheets to the wind will improve your reputation.”

“No,” he agreed, dragging a hand down his long face. “It… will not.”

Rey sighed. Sure, she couldn’t stand the man, but like this, he was far less terrifying, and after all, he was a fellow teacher. “Look. Get down to Pryde’s office without being seen. I know for a fact he has a stock of QuikSober packets in the bottom left desk drawer. Take one and stay in there until you feel better.”

“Bottom left drawer,” Solo repeated as if he was concentrating very hard. “Pryde’s… office.”

“Yes, and you had better find it on your own. I’ve got a feast to go back to.” She tucked her wand away. “Try not to break anything else, Solo.”

“Mm. First I was  _ Professor,  _ for… what, the first two years you had here? And now I’m  _ Solo. _ How interesting.” Solo took a step or two, bringing him out of shadow and into the light of the rest of the room, and Rey almost recoiled: he looked  _ terrible.  _ Both eyes were red-rimmed and one was bloodshot, while the circles beneath were so pronounced and his skin was so pale that he looked as if someone had painted him in grey, the multiple dark moles on his face standing out in high contrast. What had happened to him? “Perhaps by the time I’m sixty, you’ll be calling me by my given name.”

“I call my  _ friends _ by their given names,” she snapped back. 

“Yes. And as you have made quite clear on mul-multiple occasions. I have no friends at all, least of all you.” He closed his eyes, sweat gleaming on his paper-white forehead. “I—”

Rey knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened, and conjured up a bucket, shoving it into his face precisely as he got sick, Firewhiskey and stomach bile sloshing into the bucket. “Christ’s sake,” she blurted out as he sank to the carpet, his cloak billowing out around him. “I’ll go get the QuikSober myself, if—”

“It won’t help,” he mumbled, leaning his head against the sofa. “The drinking is… not the illness, but the attempted cure.”

Rey blinked. “Cure for what? Do I need to get Madame Kalonia?”

For answer, Solo coughed, a horrible wet sound, and blood stained his lips. “No,” he whispered. “Get— get Professor Hux, and have him meet me in— in his classroom.” He sank down slowly to the carpet, curled on his side, and his breathing came shallowly.

“Can you even walk there on your own?” she demanded, kneeling down. He looked like he was dying right there in front of her, and she had a terrible thought: what if he had done something awful with Dark Magic? A backfired curse, or a— “What did you  _ do _ in the Forbidden Forest?” she whispered, and when his eyes met hers, there was only listless pain and guilt in them.

“Just. Just get Hux.” He coughed again, blood bubbling past his lips. “ _ Please,  _ Aurelia.”

It was the first time he’d ever even acknowledged the fact that she  _ had  _ a given name, let alone spoken it, and the importance of doing as he asked bored into her brain. “I’ll get him. You stay right here. I’ll bring him to you here. Don’t wander off.”

“Potions,” he mumbled faintly, and she stood up, fear beating out a staccato in her chest as she turned and ran from the staff room.


	5. The Potions Master

The feast was nearly over, and as Rey scanned the head table, she saw Armitage Hux’s signature head of ginger hair standing out from the crowd. She’d not really ever spoken to him, but her students spoke of his Potions skills with admiration and high regard, and he had a reputation for being finicky and exacting with his grading.  _ It’s life or death, _ she told herself, and marched right up to him as he turned away from a conversation with Professor Tico— Care of Magical Creatures Professor Tico, not Herbology Professor Tico. They were sisters, but Rey didn’t know them as well as Dameron and Iji did. 

“Professor,” she panted, a stitch in her side from running. “I’ve got to ask you to come with me, it’s an emergency.”

“What?” He sounded genuinely taken aback, his green eyes wide. “What’s the—”

“It’s Professor Solo.” Rey was gratified to see a flicker of sudden understanding cross his face. “He’s in the staff room. You’d better come quick.”

Without another word, Hux followed her from the Hall, past students who turned to watch them in confusion: what was the Muggle Studies professor doing with the Potions master? “How did he look?”

“Horrible. He’s also drunk. I don’t know what’s happened.”

“Merlin’s beard,” muttered Hux as they rushed to the door to the staff room, ducking inside. “Solo?”

The room was empty. Rey turned to him in confusion. “He was right there! Right by the couch, on the floor!”

Hux knelt and touched the carpet, his fingers coming up stained in red. “I believe you,” he said quietly. 

She snapped her fingers, realizing. “Potions! He said he’d try to meet you in the potions classroom but I told him to stay here!”

He jumped up and made for the door. “Let’s go. I might need your help. How are you with medical charms?”

They rushed down the corridor to the right, made another right, and descended the chilly, dank stairs down to the basement of the castle, lit by torchlight. “Passing,” she confessed.  _ I should have worn a proper robe. This costume is awful. I’m freezing.  _ “I can cure, um, scrapes and things. But my Full-Body Bind is pretty good, if you have to work on someone who won’t stop thrashing about.”

“It’ll have to do.” Hux pushed open the door to the Potions classroom, and there was Solo, half-draped over the desk, his hair stuck to his face, breathing shallowly and barely conscious. “Merlin’s arse, Solo.  _ Lumos Maxima. _ ”

The room filled with softly brilliant golden-white light, and Rey hurried to help him: they levitated Solo onto the huge table Hux used for class demonstrations and Hux removed his layers of robes while Rey rushed to find the ingredients he barked at her: fresh Murtlap tentacles, Billywig sting slime, asphodel, boom berry, flobberworm mucus, honeywater, lionfish spines. The list kept going on and on until her head spun, and she lit the cauldron for Hux as he lifted the last layer off Solo’s prone form, revealing far more of Professor Solo than Rey had ever been interested in seeing. A sickeningly gray-black bruiselike mark the size of Hux’s hand was spread out below Solo’s ribcage, with blackened veins spreading outward to his chest, sides, and abdomen. “What  _ is _ that?” gasped Rey as Hux rushed to the cauldron, mixing and chopping and stirring like a madman.

“Looks like he’s been on the receiving end of some kind of curse. Transmogrifying? Maybe?” A lock of red hair fell into Hux’s eyes as he rolled his sleeves up and kept working. “Look at him. Can you spot any misshapen oddities on his skin, maybe? He could have possibly tried to contain it.”

Rey bent down to examine Solo’s skin. There were no bumps or lumps, or protrusions apart from a myriad of old scars: indeed, nothing at all looked like the aftereffects of a Transmogrifying Curse. Solo gagged, and blood streamed from his mouth again. “Professor, I think he’s— he’s got internal bleeding.” She pressed down softly on the bruise over his belly, and Solo let out a high-pitched groan, his eyelids fluttering as his eyes rolled back into his head. “Something’s struck him here, hard.”

“Internal—” Hux stopped what he was doing and skidded back over, frantically waving his elm wand over Solo’s body. “Oh.  _ Oh.  _ He’s been hit with some sort of modified  _ Sectum- _ class curse, it causes haemorrhaging and I—” Hux’s face went very still. “I can’t remember the bloody cure for it.”

“How do you administer dittany internally?” demanded Rey, stunned.

Hux shook his head and rushed back to his cauldron. “You can’t— I’m, I’ll make a Blood-Replenishing Potion to help, and a—a Wiggenweld Potion, that cures injuries.”

Rey shook her head. Solo was barely moving. “That’ll take too long. We have to tell someone, we’ve got to get Madame Kalonia!”

Hux shook his head. “Madame Kalonia can’t work against Dark Magic. She’s a school matron, not a bloody Auror. The best we can do is a Blood-Replenishing potion to ensure he doesn’t exsanguinate...”

Rey was barely listening. Her thoughts went flying back to the previous night, which seemed a lifetime ago, and Solo’s voice explaining that the mistake… what was the mistake made with Tony Hopkins’ arm? “You can’t…cure it... the mistake was not using a countercharm to the accident itself,” she muttered, drawing out her own wand. “Countercharm. Countercurse.”

Hux was elbow-deep in lionfish spines and asphodel. “What are you—”

She leaned over the table and pointed her wand directly at Solo’s stomach, right in the center of the bruise, and took a second to clear her mind. “ _ Vulnera sanentur,” _ Rey chanted slowly, remembering.  _ Let the wound be healed. “Vulnera sanentur.” _ She gently twisted the wand in a circular pattern, and tried her best to visualize the inside wounds being closed up as Hux rushed to make the Blood-Replenishing potion. “ _ Vulnera sanentur.” _

Solo’s throat convulsed and he gasped in air, blinking wildly and shivering as the grayish mark slowly faded, the black veins reducing away. “C-cold,” he managed.

Rey dropped her wand and pressed her face into her hands. “The absolute fucking  _ gall _ of you,” she spat, shaking. “Walking about with a dark curse injury and what,  _ what  _ was your plan, huh, Professor? To just drop dead in the bloody staffroom? As if we need another goddamned ghost on staff: the librarian is one thing but  _ you _ —”

“Well,” he forced out, squinting up at her, “I must be on the m-mend, or you wouldn’t be s-shouting the castle down, Professor Nieman.”

“I really do loathe you,” she snapped.

“I’ll get a fire started.” Hux walked over, looking disheveled, and handed Solo a vial. “Drink that. And I’ll repair your robes.”

Solo pushed himself up with some difficulty and downed the Blood-Replenishing potion in a gulp, his mouth twisting unpleasantly. Rey sank into a chair and tried to remember how to breathe as her hand shook. “What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

“I thought that was obvious,” said Solo, swinging his long legs off the table and resting a moment as color came gradually back into his skin. “I stumbled into a dark curse I couldn’t counterattack: you... and Professor Hux have just saved my life.”

When Rey spoke again, it was through her teeth. “I have the safety of the student body in mind, and if there’s something on the grounds that can harm them, I and every other teacher here has a right to know. So does the headmaster.”

A very small sigh escaped him. “There is nothing the students need to be worried about, Professor Nieman.”

Nothing to worry about? There was nothing more she’d like to do than punch him in his too-large nose. “Don’t you dare lie to me. I saw you in the Forest, and now this— this—”

“Last night, the night you stumbled across me in the Forest, I had just been struck by a dark curse a few hours prior,” he said tightly as Hux, who already seemed to know what was going on, sat down and started repairing his robes. “After I’d delivered you to the hospital wing, my symptoms became more physically serious and began to... amplify exponentially as time went on.”

“And at which point did you finally decide you needed help?” demanded Rey.

Something flickered in his dark eyes. “Precisely the moment I realized that heavy consumption of alcohol as a last resort to numb pain was a bad idea.”

“You don’t need a Dark Magic curse to realize that, Solo,” said Hux, rolling his eyes. Solo ignored him.

“How did you get struck by it anyway?” asked Rey, crossing her arms. 

Solo and Hux exchanged a strange glance, and Rey waited, letting her fury simmer down a little. Whatever this secret was, it seemed to be serious. “There is,” said Solo very shortly, “a Dark artifact of some kind hidden deep in the Forbidden Forest, the nature of which seems completely undiscoverable since it blasts out Dark curses if you so much as breathe on it.”

“You told me you tried to  _ touch _ it,” said Hux accusingly.

Solo had the decency to flush. “All right, I touched the tree it was inside. I had protected gloves on.”

“But how did you know it was blasting out Dark curses?” demanded Rey, shocked. 

Solo winced as he took another gulp of Replenishing potion. “Trial and error. I would rather duel a chimera.”

“Even Bellerophon had to attack the one he fought from the air,” muttered Hux. 

“All right, then what— who put a dark artifact in the Forest?” Rey made herself look away from Solo’s heaving chest, which seemed about as wide as a door, and uncomfortably thick with powerful muscle. The whole pale expanse was dotted with freckles and moles, much like his face. “Can you please put on a, a cloak or something?”

Hux threw the repaired cloak at Solo, and he wrapped it around his shoulders. “Isn’t that the question of the hour... at any rate, the Forbidden Forest is already off-limits to students. Whatever the item is, it’s inside the hollow of a tree deep inside the woods with a radius of dark magic around it half a mile wide. The tree itself is protected by a net of spells it took me three months to unravel, and now all that’s for nothing, since when I touched the damn thing, it cursed me and the whole net snapped back into place.”

“Why don’t you call the Ministry, then? Aurors or something?”

“They’d descend on the school ground like flies. Imagine the complaining parents. Can’t have that, can we?” Hux sounded acerbic.

“No, I mean why is Professor Solo doing all this? And you, I suppose?”

The two men exchanged a look. “I have… history with this type of work,” said Solo, not meeting her eyes. “I was asked. Off the record.”

_ So. Solo has some sort of secret background in working with Dark magic. Connections high up. Finn was right.  _ Rey gathered her thin dressing gown about her. “Does Kanata know?”

“She does not know about the artifact. Yet. And I am not planning on her knowing about it until I can... present it, in hand, safely.” Solo’s eyes were dark and guarded, and Rey felt Hux’s eyes on her, could see his fingers twitching against his wand. 

“You don’t have to bloody Obliviate me,” she snapped. Hux’s hand darted away from his wand, and a guilty expression flashed across his face. “I won’t tell. But if you get yourself cursed again, don’t expect me to miss— oh, God, I’ve gone and missed cocktail hour, haven’t I? And Iji and Dameron will be wondering where on earth I’ve wound up.”

“It’s hardly eight,” said Hux, glancing at his pocket watch. “I’ll walk you up to the fourth floor if you like. I’m sure the party will go on until—”

“I’ll escort her,” said Solo darkly, sliding off the table. “Give me back my clothes.”

Hux sounded astonished. “You’re recovering from—Solo, you can’t be serious. Sit down.” 

Rey watched out of the corner of her eye as Solo pulled the rest of his clothes out of Hux’s hands and got dressed: shirt, vest, jacket, long cloak. “I’m completely serious. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done here. Thank you, Hux.”

Hux sighed and waved his wand, setting all the things in the classroom back to rights. “Fine. If you faint, have Nieman send a Patronus or something. What a Hallowe’en.”

* * *

“You don’t get to escort me anywhere,” Rey hissed, stomping along through the dank corridors in Solo’s wake. 

“On the contrary. If I ruin someone’s plans due to my own—my own poor judgment, I consider it my duty to rectify that.” He was still pale, but certainly didn’t look like he was dying anymore in the torchlight they passed. 

She was so cold. Her breath smoked in the air, and her thin dressing-gown offered absolutely no protection. “This isn’t the way we came down.” A dreadful thought passed her mind: what if he was taking her somewhere to kill her so his secret wouldn’t get out?

Solo seemed completely unconcerned. “This way’s faster. Secret staircase. I may not know all the contents of Mr. Pryde’s desk, but I know my way around the castle.”

“Why did you get expelled from Durmstrang?” she blurted out, and regretted saying it the moment it was out. He checked himself in his stride and whirled on her, his face still as stone, the muscles beneath twitching as if a river was about to break free. 

“I beg your pardon?” he snarled.

There was no use in backing down. Rey stood her ground, making sure her wand was safely at hand. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” A shiver wracked her. Solo’s eyes darted down to her chest, then back up to her face immediately without reacting, and she looked down to see that the cold had hardened her nipples so badly that they were poking through both dressing-gown and the shirt she wore beneath it. Mortified, Rey crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to know,” she pressed.

Solo slipped off his outer cloak and hung it around her shoulders. “I’m sure you do,” he said coldly. “For now, you should focus on wearing weather-appropriate clothes. Maybe a brassiere.”

Heat flooded her face. “First of all,  _ you _ don’t get to lecture me about what kind of undergarments I choose to wear, and secondly, most brassieres are pointless and exist for purely chauvinist reasons. I don’t see  _ you  _ wearing one.”

Was that a trick of the torchlight, or was he smirking at her? Half his face was lit in gold, the other half cast in shadow. “No? And yet you still covered yourself when you realized the effects of the cold.”

_ I cannot believe I’m having this conversation.  _ “Because— because I don’t want  _ you  _ looking at my, my  _ chest  _ and you shouldn’t even have looked in the first place!”

“Peculiar. You didn’t seem to extend such a courtesy to me in the Potions classroom.” Why was he so  _ close? _ And yet, Rey had never backed down in her life and didn’t intend to start now. “Or perhaps you think yourself an exception to your own rule?” He was right next to her, nearly on top of her, looming and broad and smelling of the citrus-and-iron Replenishing potion. 

“Good point. Next time I need to help you not die, I’ll just stand with my nose to the wall until someone puts a quilt on you,” she fired back. 

“Don’t be purposely obtuse, Nieman. It’s a disgrace to your intelligence.” The hooded, triangular eye lit by torchlight was not black at all like she had thought, Rey realized as she stared up into Solo’s face— the outer ring was a dark olive, the inner iris green, the black pupil ringed by a rich, red-brown burst of pigment. It must be the color around the pupil that made his eyes look so dark in the shadows.

“Then don’t insult my intelligence,” she said, trying not to blink. 

“If I ever have, I’m sorry for it,” he said softly. “I would like to express my gratitude for your quick thinking and spellwork. You saved my life.”

“You’re welcome,” she said automatically. “Are we on a surname basis as a form of address, then?”

Solo did not move from his spot, inches away from her. “I expect we are.”

“I didn’t even know you knew my given name,” Rey muttered. 

Color rushed his sallow cheeks. “I should not have been so familiar. Iji speaks of you often. And fondly. I—I would never be so bold as to use a nickname in front of students. Or even in private. There are— there are formalities one has to observe as a professor here, and as I mentioned before, to be overly familiar in a professional setting can ruin a career.”

“Yes,” Rey said dryly. “You made that very clear when you threatened to tell the Ministry that Professor Iji and I are a couple, or whatever nonsense you thought you were implying, for no other reason than I’m friends with him and you don’t like him.”

“Don’t  _ like _ him?” Solo blinked. “I have the utmost regard for Professor Iji. His studies at Uagadou in charm-work were stellar. Perfect marks. He can use nonverbal and wandless magic better than any other professor here. Of course we have our disagreements, but he’s a worthy peer in every regard possible. His input on my Imperturbable Curse module was invaluable.”

Rey's mouth fell open. “I thought you got into a fight over, over— he threatened to hex you!”

He shook his head, apparently amused. “There are friends, Nieman, and then there are peers. They are not always the same people. You’d do well to keep that in mind. Perhaps you haven’t grown to understand that yet.”

How dare he talk to her like she was a child? She resolved not to let his barbs get at her. “Is Hux your friend, then?”

Solo's eyes narrowed. “More of a... professional acquaintance.”

“Iji told me to watch out around you, that you weren’t safe or trustworthy and that you could get me fired,” said Rey. “Is there anything invaluable to  _ that _ ?” She should have felt satisfaction in watching wounded shock flicker across Solo’s face, but she only felt— only— “He said you came from Dark wizard stock. That you were nobody’s friend.”

“Did he,” said Solo tonelessly, his face settling back down into a controlled mask. “And what do you think of that, Nieman? Do you think I’m unsafe? Or untrustworthy?”

“I— I—” She hesitated. If she was honest, would he become angry with her? Somehow, she didn't think so. "Maybe a little. You still threatened to report me over nothing. Don't think I forgot that."

The pitch of his voice dropped considerably. “A little? What a pity. I trusted you enough to leave my life in your hands. Although in spite of my... well, you must think me trustworthy on some level, since we’re in a dungeon corridor on Hallowe’en together, alone.”

“I thought you were the one saying not to be familiar with your peers,” she said with all the frosty chill she could muster. “And yet here you are, asking me about my underwear.”

Something in his eyes blazed hot and furious, and when he spoke, it was in low, barely-controlled tones. “I was expelled from Durmstrang at the age of fourteen for involuntary magic, performed in my sleep, that killed two professors and ten students. Their deaths were covered up by the Ministry, I was immediately moved to Hogwarts under a false identity, I never saw my family again, and once I graduated I threw myself headlong into working for the Ministry on their request because they would be  _ well _ within my rights to put me on trial. I became a professor because I was asked to do so, I am trying to get this damn object because I was asked to do so, and I— I—” He caught his breath, his fists clenched at his sides.

Rey couldn’t breathe. Killed twelve people? In his  _ sleep _ _?_ At fourteen? How? How could that happen? “S-Solo—”

Solo sucked in a ragged breath, turned away from her, and made some sort of jerking full-body movement that sent a burst of red light rocketing down the corridor—but it hadn’t come from his wand. “Do  _ not _ ,” he ground out, whirling on his heel to face her again, “patronize me. Have the decency to at least be direct, Nieman.”

She swallowed. “I didn’t know. Nobody knows. I didn’t— I didn’t have any idea. You, you were, um, born in America? I did wonder about the accent, but...”

“Yes. And I haven’t been there since the summer before I turned fourteen.” Solo’s voice cracked slightly, and he shut his eyes. “I apologize. That was an outburst I should not have subjected you to. You’re right. I should not have mentioned your— your private choices. At all. It was inappropriate. And Iji is correct in his framing of me.”

Rey tried her hardest to not back away. “That— that’s why you’re so distant from everyone, isn’t it?”

Both eyes flew open, focused on her with alarming intensity. “You  _ will  _ have the decency to not repeat a word I’ve said, I hope.”

“But why? If people knew, they’d understand—”

Solo shook his head sharply. “If anyone knew, they’d distrust me even more than they already do. I’d lose my job—my grandfather was a powerful man, and he turned out to be secretly working for the non-magical Russian government on the side; don’t you think there are people just  _ dying  _ to have an excuse to get rid of the last Skywalker? Don’t say a word about this, Nieman. To anyone.”

“When I was, um, about seven,” said Rey quickly, “before I’d gotten my letter, you know—I wanted so badly to color my hair pink, but my mum said no. Well, the next morning when I woke up I had pink hair. Mum had a fit. Just about beat my arse black and blue, thinking I’d managed to make off with a dye kit somehow. And when I was ten, I remember a boy was— chasing me down the street, yelling at me, being a bully— as kids are— and I’m not sure how it happened, but a bin flew out of someone’s shed and rammed right into him. He just flew head over heels into the road. Broke his arm. Told myself it was the weather, a freak gust of wind, but I— I knew, sort of, all along— it was me. All that to say, Solo, that you’re certainly not the first person who’s done harm to themselves or to other people by accident with their magic, and you won’t be the last.”

His long, dour face tightened. “You’re trying to empathize with me. Why?”

That took her aback a little. “Because— because I know what it feels like to be alone, and scared of yourself, a bit.”

His eyes narrowed fractionally. “I am  _ not—” _

“Yes, you are, but maybe you haven’t grown to understand that yet. Now, can we  _ please _ get out of this freezing corridor and up to somewhere with a fire?”

After a moment of hesitation, Solo let out a sigh, and without another word, he turned up the dark, cold corridor. Rey followed, her heart beating out the fastest staccato it could possibly muster.

* * *

The kitchens of Hogwarts were bright, clean, gleaming, and overrun with house-elves, who scurried about squeaking to each other, preparing food, washing pots with a snap of their fingers, and putting away things with waves of tiny, wrinkled hands. The heat hit Rey like a tropical sun, and she sighed in relief and opened the cloak as Solo walked in, sidestepping a few indignant elves to get to the huge fire at the end of the stone-walled room. Wood and copper gleamed, burnished and polished as bright as the fire.

“Any leftovers from the party upstairs?” he asked one, who wore a crisply ironed, pinned tea-towel embroidered with the Hogwarts crest.

“Oh, Master Solo! No, there ain’t, but we can make you something to eat straightaway, can’t we?” she squeaked, her green eyes wide. 

“Not for me, Dippy; it’s for Nieman over there,” said Solo, pointing at Rey, who waved shyly. She’d been down here a few times, but she certainly didn’t know all the elves by name yet. 

Dippy shook her head. “Heaven’s sakes, you need something to eat, too, Professor Solo. You've missed the feast.”

“Missed the feast?” trilled another elf, shocked, which brought on a chorus from the others of, “Oh, no, no! Sit down, sit down, quick!”

That was how Rey found herself sitting on the warm stone in front of the dying fire nibbling on Brie and blackberry crostini and sipping apple wine while Solo sat across from her and devoured everything he could get his hands on. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked, a little impressed.

Solo paused halfway through a leg of lamb. “Mm. This morning at breakfast. But I only had a glass of pumpkin juice. No appetite. Tends to be a side effect of dark curses that cause internal bleeding.”

“Well, don’t rush on my account. It’s hardly nine.” Rey wanted to stretch out in front of the fire like a cat, but thought better of it. Another elf brought her a top-up of wine, and she declined. “Oh, no, Nobby, thank you.”

“As you wish,” he chirped, and scurried back off to his duties. She considered how much of a change had happened down here: when she had gone to school at Hogwarts, she remembered a house-elf bringing something by mistake to a professor, and when the poor creature had realized, she had bashed her head into a wall, wailing inconsolably.  _ A little kindness goes a long way. That, and some self-esteem courses. _

Solo’s voice broke through her daydream. “Penny for your thoughts.”

“Hm? Oh. I was just thinking about the change in the house-elves here. For the better, I must add. Can you believe we ever thought they  _ liked _ being enslaved?”

“Generational trauma can wreak funny things on a collective psyche,” said Solo, looking at the fire. “Or an individual one.”

“That’s for certain.” She took another bite of crostini: the Brie was buttery and soft, and the blackberries were perfectly juicy-tart. “Mmm. I nearly forgot about Kanata’s speech— you know, saying people ought to poke about the grounds for surprises. I don’t suppose you’d like to do some exploring with me? If not, of course, I understand, it’s been a very eventful night—”

“I—” He looked completely taken aback. “With— everyone?”

“Well, I’m just curious to find something. Don’t you like taking walks?”

Solo seemed to collect himself. “Certainly. Yes. But you really should put on something warmer.”

“I’ve got an extra cloak in the staffroom. Come on, then.”

* * *

The grounds were dark and lit by sporadic jack o’ lanterns, grinning down at the excited students who hurried around, peering in bushes and dark corners as the cold wind gusted about their ankles. Rey, cloaked warmly in wool, rushed off through the longer grass of the field by the gamekeeper’s hut as Solo followed at a distance: Moden Canady had attended the feast with everyone else, and his cottage was lit with eerie orange light, getting in on the festivities.

“Boo!” crooned a silvery voice, and Rey shrieked, then caught herself, laughing: it was only the Grey Lady, floating a few inches above the grass. 

“Oh, you got me. How are you liking the evening?”

“Very much,” answered the Grey Lady, bobbing softly as if she were in deep water. “So nice to see you out and about with a gentleman, Aurelia.”

“Uh— oh, no, it’s not, not like  _ that, _ ” Rey said quickly, heat rising to her face. “The very idea, Helena.” 

“No? We used to have such intellectual conversations when you were in seventh year. You never even looked at a boy. Or a girl, for that matter. Is he very bright, then?”

Rey had to smile. “He’s clever. Possibly as clever as me, I’ll allow.” 

Helena Ravenclaw’s ghost tilted her head to the side, her dark hair tumbling over her silver-clad shoulder. “Is he? Good. I recall him from his days here. Poor child.”

“You remember him from— but of course you would, wouldn’t you?” Rey was seized with curiosity. “What was he like?”

“As a boy? Sallow. Standoffish. The poor Sorting Hat didn’t know what to do with him: sat on his head for ages while we all watched a great big American boy of fourteen get sorted, and finally the Hat shouted  _ Ravenclaw _ .” The Grey Lady looked over Rey’s shoulder. “Odd to look at, isn’t he? And yet… there is something compelling about the face. Particularly the eyes.”

Rey turned to see Solo heading for them. “Thought I lost you, Professor,” she said, smiling.

“Mm,” he said, and saw the ghost. “Oh, hello, Lady Helena. How are you enjoying this year’s Hallowe’en?”

“As much as anything I can enjoy,” she said. “It’s been some time since you visited me, Ky—”

“Solo, it’s just Solo now,” he said quickly. “And I’m sorry. It has.”  _ Ky? _ thought Rey, confused.

“Solo, then,” said the Grey Lady in a slightly different tone. “Such a lonely little name. A lonely name for a lonely child.”

“Do you know anything about Halloween surprises on the grounds?” asked Rey, sensing the discomfort coming off Solo. “The headmaster said—”

“Oh, yes. You’ve got to answer a riddle, of course.” Helena lowered her eyes a little, then recited:

_ Mouthless I speak, earless I hear _

_ Bodiless I, but distance brings near. _

_ Speak and I answer, though I am not here. _

Solo frowned. “The wind,” he said instantly.

The Grey Lady shook her head, and Rey turned on him. “How can distance bring wind near?” she demanded. “No, no. Something without a body, that gives answers… over a distance. And hears… what you say? Something that answers what you say, over— oh! Oh! It’s an echo!”

Helena Ravenclaw smiled. “Correct,” she said, and raised a hand. A glittering path of blue-white sparks sprang to life in the grass, leading off into the circle of standing stones near the bridge to the castle. 

“Thank you!” called Rey, and rushed off with excitement into the glittering path, Solo hurrying to keep up. “Hurry up, Solo! I want to find out what it is!”

“With a pace like yours, who needs a broomstick?” he groused, clomping along. 

They entered the circle of stones, and the glittering sparks whirled, circled, and went out for a moment, leaving them in the dark. Solo took out his wand, but Rey whispered, “Wait!” and the ground opened up directly in the center, red sparks flashing, as it gave up its secret: a little chest carved of black wood. 

“You’ll forgive me for checking it first,” said Solo, waving his wand over the chest. A few golden streaks rushed about the item, then dissipated. “All clear.”

“I’m sure this won’t hit me with a dark curse, but thanks,” said Rey, pointing her wand at the lock. “ _ Alohomora.”  _ It opened immediately, revealing an assortment of useful and tasty items: a vial of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Chocolate Frogs, self-inking quills, bruise removal paste, Pepper Imps, Choco-Balls, and hot pumpkin pasties. “Happy Halloween,” said Rey brightly, beaming at Solo. 

“Happy Hallowe’en,” he said, actually looking half-pleased. 

“Right, shall we split it?”

“You answered the riddle. It’s yours.” Solo shifted his weight, standing there awkwardly. 

“Nonsense. Here. You can take the Darkness Powder, the bruise paste, and half the sweets. I want the quills, though. Half my ordinary pens are already running dry and it’s not as if I can just drop into a Tesco and buy more.” Rey pushed the treats into his hands, and he simply stared at them, then at her. 

“Ah. Thank you.”

“Course. Oh, I forgot— I was going to send Hux a Patronus.” Rey spread her feet and concentrated, pointing her wand, breathing deeply and remembering the warmth of the kitchen, laughing with Finn and Poe, seeing a student who ordinarily struggled get a perfect score on an essay. “ _ Expecto Patronum.” _ A burst of silvery-blue light soared from the tip of her wand, and resolved itself into a glowing osprey, who spread its wings and came to rest on the ground, looking her over with a bright silver eye. “Find Hux. Tell him all’s well, Solo’s fine, Happy Halloween, and good night.”

The osprey spread its wings and soared off. Solo watched it go with an odd look in his eye. “Well,” he said softly. “I suppose we have discovered that there is one thing you can do, Nieman, that I cannot.”

“What would that be, Solo?”

“Cast a Patronus charm. Shall I walk you back to the castle?”

Rey blinked. “Oh. Erm.” It was true that Dark wizards couldn’t cast Patronuses, the worst of them, anyway— but she shouldn’t judge: she’d barely been able to cast one until she was twenty. Why did the fact that Solo couldn't cast one unsettle her so badly? “Yes, if you would. And I’ll find my own way at the entry. Thank you.”

They set off together in amiable silence through the cold night, hands full of sweets, while Rey’s mind spun around and around, trying to make sense of it all.


	6. Friends and Foes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags! They have been updated!

November came in with cold, dreary winds and blustery grey days, the winter chill starting its slow creep into the stone walls of the castle. Nothing very exciting happened, apart from some second-years accidentally hexing each other with boils in the Charms classroom that Iji had to tend to: it was right before the winter holidays, and everyone in the castle walls was looking ahead to Christmas with yearning excitement. 

Rey impressed upon all her classes the importance of studying over the long holiday. “Expect a quiz immediately after classes start back up in the new year,” she said often and loudly. “If your parents allow you, do drop into a few non-magical spots and walk about. Observe. Your mind and your eyes are your most important tools in understanding.”

Important the mind and eyes might be, but her students’ were all elsewhere— rumors of a Yule Ball began flowing by the end of the second week of November, and it was all anyone could talk about. Rey confiscated dozens of notes with animated sketches of Christmas trees, gowns, robes, and stars. _I really ought to ask about it and put an end to this._

* * *

The second Saturday of the month, Dameron had to cancel a Quidditch match due to terrible sleet, but by Sunday morning, the day was bright, clear, and frigid. He came skidding down the head table, all smiles, and practically catapulted himself into the seat by Rey as she nibbled at toast with one hand and made notes for her lesson plans Monday with the other. “Nieman! Good news!” he cried. “Sky’s clear, and Kanata’s given me the go-ahead. Ravenclaw goes up against Slytherin in an hour and a half. You’ll be there?”

She shook her head, quickly making a note that her second-year module on non-magical modes of transport ought to include some sort of practical demonstration. “Oh— I’ve just got loads of work to—”

“You promised,” coaxed Dameron, waggling his eyebrows at her. “Come on. First you vanish on Halloween, then this? Iji’ll be there, supporting Ravenclaw— even though he was Gryffindor, of course: he’ll wave a pennant or something.”

“All right, fine,” Rey relented, stacking up her papers. “I’ll meet you there, just let me get my things in order.”

And to be sure, she did have to walk all the way back to her office to put everything in order, and after that she had to dress in warmer clothes and find her house colors to wear— she practically raced off to the Quidditch pitch: her somewhat faded blue and bronze scarf, muffling her up to her ears; a gray wool hat; an old pink wool cloak with a high collar she had scrounged up at Madam Malkin’s at nearly quarter-price (she’d only got it because it was so cheap, and she’d patched the many holes with bright squares of knitted yellow and green and orange wool); a Fairisle jumper that had seen better days, and her good fur-lined boots. 

When Rey finally got to the pitch and to her seat, she cast a quick Warming Spell on her hands before looking about: Iji was making his way over to her, she was pleased to see, with hot mugs of cocoa in both hands. “Nieman! Lovely. You can help me drink this. Dameron’s back under the tarps giving Ravenclaw’s team a pep talk.”

Rey gulped at the chocolate. “Mm, thanks. I really can only stay until right at the end of the match— I’ve got so much to do for tomorrow, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. My kids won’t stop talking about the Yule Ball. Farha Saliba levitated herself right into the rafters and got stuck. Lintra told me that Luis Alvarez— you know, the third year?— almost turned a goblet into a raisin instead of a raven. Heads in the clouds, all of them.” 

“Is there really going to be one?” asked Rey, licking her lips. “Or is it just a rumor?”

“Nah, it’s real. Don’t say anything officially until December first, though. Can’t have a riot on our hands.” Iji grinned. “I’m organizing a trip to Hogsmeade the weekend of the tenth. You want to come along? Chaperone?”

“Ooh, might be fun. Which classes?”

“I think they’re doing it by house. It’s all the Hufflepuffs over fourth year. So—”

She blinked. “Good Lord. That’s about five hundred children. Who else is coming as chaperone?”

“Lintra volunteered, thank heavens, and so did D’Acy and Hux.” Iji pointed over at the Slytherin stand, where Hux’s red hair gleamed like a lighthouse beacon. “I think D’Acy was going to ask Kin, too— you haven’t got to know him yet much, have you? Beaumont? He’s the one who graduated from Beauxbatons— anyway, he teaches Ancient Runes.”

“That’s only five— six? One teacher for a hundred students?”

“Ah, some won’t go. We’ve only got about three hundred permission slips back. But I guess if we announce the ball beforehand… everyone’ll want to get their shopping for it out of the way, won’t they?”

Rey fought a smile. “We ought to ask Solo. He’ll keep them in line, frighten everyone into behaving.” 

Iji’s dark face went slightly grey in pallor, and Rey gulped as a voice over her head intoned, “Oh?” She turned, squinting up into his face: Solo seemed much larger up close, broad-shouldered and beaky-nosed, swathed in black wool. “I couldn’t help but hear that my services might be required for keeping students on their best behavior.”

“Only if you fancy an outing to Hogsmeade,” Rey shot back, feeling oddly daring and a little giddy. “And if you can keep a secret.”

His left eye twitched. “Indeed?” he asked.

“There’s going to be a Yule Ball. Don’t tell anyone until the headmaster does.”

Solo’s head tilted just slightly to the left of center. “As if I would ever encourage a student to focus on holidays over studies, Professor. Just today, I have confiscated three separate badly done scribbles of animated formalwear. And Professor Waheed says she’s had to stop Arithmancy a few times because daydreaming students caused snow flurries in the classroom.”

Rey hid a smile, looking over to where Professor Jannah Waheed was sitting, wrapped in yellow and black from head to toe and chatting with Canady. “Well, perhaps we ought to quash the rumors. Better surprise, yeah?”

“So, you’re in for chaperone duty?” said Iji, leaning over Rey to address Solo.

Solo blinked. “Ah. Yes. I think— yes.”

“Good. Uh. You can sit, if you like.”

Rey nearly clapped her hand to her head. “Of course! Here, sit. Can’t have you standing, else nobody behind you’ll be able to see a thing.”

Solo sat. The thick wood bench creaked under his weight, and Rey had a vividly unwelcome memory: a broad chest, stark lines of thick muscle delineated under pale skin. Divorced from its original context of horrified dark spellwork, it was— well, it was— _Stop that,_ she thought wildly to herself, shoving her face into her mug and drinking more cocoa to hide her expression. _I’ve clearly been reading too many terrible romance novels._

Certainly they were diverting when she had the time for them, or just wanted to take her mind off lesson planning once in a blue moon— but things like _The Witch’s Wild Ride_ and _My Warlock Lover_ were certainly not realistic in any way, not the least because they all featured torrid affairs between some tragically disaffected warlock and a bright-eyed ingenue, or a Dark Wizard who was hiding some sort of secret (usually that he was fabulously wealthy) and a steely-eyed Auror bent on finding him out. She’d be better off reading _Hogwarts: A History_ again. And yet… Rey peeked out of the corner of her eyes at Solo, who was staring straight ahead at the field, even though the game hadn’t started yet. 

_Pale as if he’s barely ever seen the sun. Hides himself. Doesn’t expose himself, maybe ever: was he embarrassed that I saw him without his shirt? Likely not: he probably thinks of me as a glorified piece of furniture. Or an overgrown house-elf. Fourteen years old, and he killed with accidental magic… there must be something more to the story._

_Skywalker. Haven’t I heard that name before?_ She resolved to look it up sometime. The intricacies of American wizarding politics were not her forte. Solo’s large nose was red with the cold, and the wind picked up a little. “Cocoa?” she asked quickly, holding out her empty mug and quickly firing off a Refilling Charm. 

He turned and looked at it blankly, then back at her. “Pardon?”

“Hot cocoa. Do you want some? No clean mugs, but—”

His hands, huge and thick-fingered, curled around the ceramic, and Rey felt how _cold_ he was as he lifted it away and sipped at the rim, closing his eyes. “Hm. Good. Thank you, Nieman.”

“Sure. Keep it.” She tried to not think about the fact that he had placed his mouth right over where hers had marked the lip of the mug, and stared out over the field. _It must be a mistake. Nobody would do that on purpose, certainly not—_

Iji’s voice broke through her reverie. “Oh, nearly forgot! D’you want to go to the Yule Ball with me and Dameron? We thought maybe we’d go stag, but together— you’re welcome to join in.”

“Bit unfair to ask me when the ball hasn’t even been officially announced yet, isn’t it?” she joked, horribly aware of how stiff and tense Solo had suddenly gone at her side. “Besides, I’m not much for dancing.”

“Don’t tell me you’ll spend the night studying.” Iji threw his hands up in the air. “You’ve got to let your hair down at _least_ once a year, or you’ll end up like old Jocasta Nu. A ghost, haunting the library forever, or worse, your classroom.”

“Perish the thought,” said Rey, grinning. “Maybe I’ll drop in for a moment. _After_ I get everything I need to for the new year done and sorted.”

Iji went back to watching the pitch as the teams finally emerged and Dameron shouted out the rules and started the game, and in the ensuing pandemonium of whizzing broomsticks and Bludgers flying around, Solo leaned over, pitching his voice low so as not to be heard. “You,” he said softly, making Rey’s neck tingle rather unpleasantly, “work harder at your job than almost anyone else here.”

She swallowed and kept her face carefully neutral. “I value my job very highly, Professor.”

“I see. Tell me. Do you really think you’d be fired— sacked, as they say here— without notice if you took a day for yourself? Or is your desire to be a perfect teacher so great that it will eat up your whole life?”

Stung, Rey tried her best to not slap him: how could he _know_ any of this? “If you’re using Legilimency on me to—”

“Of course not.” He sounded genuinely offended at the idea. “I simply have eyes and a working brain, Nieman. You’re terrified at not being _useful,_ for whatever reason. Valued. You want to be valued. To be respected. To be—”

“Stop it,” said Rey through her teeth. 

Solo sounded almost vindictive. “Oh, so _you_ are allowed to dredge up _my_ innermost thoughts by pretense of being _sympathetic_ , but I can’t—”

Rey pointed her wand at his foot and bit off a silent, half-whispered Foot-Asleep jinx: Solo let out a gasp of startled pain and jerked slightly, but made no motion to fight it off. “I was trying to be _nice_ to you. There is no point in you needling me in front of my friend. _Stop it.”_

Solo nodded tightly, eyes downcast, and she un-jinxed him. “I was not—” He cut himself off, his shoulders almost vibrating with some suppressed emotion. “I apologize,” he said instead as Ravenclaw scored ten points and the roar from the stands covered his voice. 

She put her wand away and kept her eye on the field, pretending she did not notice when Solo got up and left the stands.

* * *

Alectia Avery came back on the twentieth during Rey’s open-class hour, fussing about the marks Rey had given Coriolanus in his last essay, where he’d written “ _Muggles are stupid and I hate this class, it’s pointless”_ instead of a treatise on the non-magical British economy in the 1980s. “You simply can’t give him a T on this essay,” she whined, crossing her arms and impatiently tapping the toes of her fur-lined boots in Rey’s office as she sat on the edge of the chair she’d been offered, looking around as if the whole room offended her. “He deserves an Acceptable at least.”

“He most certainly does not,” said Rey coolly without looking up. “He is a perfectly adequate young man in terms of intelligence. I expect him to not treat classes like a joke.”

“Cory _doesn’t_ treat classes like a joke. Not the important ones, anyway.” Alectia’s nose was turned up so high that Rey could nearly see up into her sinuses. 

Rey set her pen down and picked up another quiz. “All classes at Hogwarts are important, Mrs. Avery. This is a core class, exactly like Transfiguration or—”

“You and I both know it’s always been a glorified extracurricular, and it’s only a core class now because of political nonsense,” snapped Alectia Avery. "Just admit it. I know you know that, even if you _are_ just a Muggleborn."

Sudden, bright rage tore through Rey. She stood up immediately, getting a gratifying little start from the other woman, who stood at about five foot five, two inches below Rey’s height. “I wonder whether you would consider every political change as nonsense, or just the ones you do not agree with, Mrs. Avery,” she snapped right back, losing her temper. “God help your children, raised under a roof like yours and being fed regressive, backwards, coddling slop.”

Alectia went scarlet and began to shriek, her blonde curls bouncing. “You, you— how _dare_ you speak to me like that? I want to speak to the Headmaster! I’m going to send an owl to my husband, the Ministry, the—”

“I don’t give a fig about your bloody husband!” Rey bellowed. Her wand was warm to the touch, and felt as if it was vibrating. “Get out of my office!”

“I have rights! I am a _parent,_ my husband’s on the board of school _governors_ , I have—”

_Crack._ A shock of yellow light burst from the tip of Rey’s wand, and enveloped Alectia Avery, shrinking her down, down, down— the shrieking became squeaking, and there was a rat on her chair instead of a witch, a rat with brown fur, a long pink tail, and beady eyes that wouldn’t stop squeaking. “Oh, fucking hell,” gasped Rey, and flicked her wand, lifting the rat into the air and depositing it into a jar on her desk. Rat-Alectia scrambled for escape, but Rey popped a lid atop it, then punched a hole into the tin with a pencil. “I am so sorry, I don’t, I don’t know what I— Mrs. Avery, are you still in there? Squeak once for yes.” The rat gave no sign that it understood her in the slightest. The nose twitched, whiskers vibrating madly. Rey sat down, heart thudding. “I’m going to be sick,” she moaned, shaking. She’d turned a parent into a _rat:_ she was going to lose her job, be suspended, never work again—

Lintra! Lintra was the Transfiguration professor— she’d know what to do, how to tell what had just happened, wouldn’t she? Rey snatched the jar up and ran for the door, half-hiding it in her cloak as she went. 

Her feet slapped the stone as she raced pell-mell to the Transfiguration classroom, which, thank the stars, was empty. The adjoining office contained a desk, a comfortable chair or two, a bookshelf, and Taliesin Lintra in the middle of grading homework, who stared in amazement as Rey skidded up to the desk and plopped the jar down. “Help me,” she gasped.

“Is that— that—” Lintra put her spectacles on, peering at the rat, who was now happily sniffing about the jar. “Nieman, is this a student?”

“Worse. It’s a parent. I have no idea what I’ve done, I’m so—the conversation was getting heated and it just— just burst out of me. I don’t know how to change her back, and even if I could, I don’t know if her mind’s been saved in there or not, because Transfiguration is so _tricky,_ you know?”

“Take a breath and sit down,” said Lintra, pointing at her chair. Rey flopped into it, trying to stop her hands from trembling, and Lintra pointed her ash wand at the jar, unscrewing it and lifting out the rat, which thrashed and squeaked like a perfectly ordinary rat. A quick little Stunning Spell, and the rat was laid out flat on the desk while Lintra looked it over carefully, waving her wand in complicated patterns above it. “Well,” she said after a moment.

“Please don’t tell me I’ve just Obliterated Alectia Avery,” said Rey in a very small voice.

The other woman shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think you… there’s a word for this in advanced transfiguration—you know when you turn a conscious thing into a non-conscious thing, the conscious part has to go somewhere?” Lintra put her hands on her hips. “This rat is a plain rat, but it’s also Mrs. Avery... It seems to me as if Mrs. Avery is still in there, albeit very small and boiled down. She likely won’t remember a thing when we bring her back, or if she does, she won’t be able to process information in a rat brain as she would in a human brain.” Lintra looked over the brown rat with a little smile. “I _knew_ she wasn’t a natural blond,” she joked.

Rey dragged her hands down her face in relief. “Should we try to bring her back in the hospital wing? Might be more comfortable than your desk.”

“Good thinking. Nieman. Let’s go on, then.”

* * *

When Alectia Avery awoke in the hospital bed, staring at two female professors groggily, she blinked and tried to sit up. “Jar,” she muttered. “Something... cursed me.”

“Something,” agreed Lintra pleasantly. “How do you feel, ma’am?”

“As if I’ve been run over by centuars,” she muttered, pushing herself up. “Wasn’t I… classroom. What did I touch?”

“Something of mine, I’m afraid,” said Rey quickly: and it wasn't a lie: Alectia Avery had certainly touched her nerves. “It had some ill effects, but you should be all right now.”

“You forget Hogwarts has danger at every turn, don’t you?” mumbled Mrs. Avery. “Thank you… I shall go home at once. Recover.” Her blond curls dangled in her eyes wildly, and she attempted to fix them. “Good day.”

“That was bloody close,” said Lintra on their way out once they’d seen her off via the Floo Network. “At least it was you and not me. If I had to deal with her coming in one more time to demand I give Karyna full marks in her Transfiguration work when the girl can barely turn a matchstick into a needle, I might have just turned her into a rat myself. A lady can only take so much chopsing.”

Rey groaned. “I thought it was just me! She’s got her dander up every time I turn around because Coriolanus won’t take the class seriously and keeps turning in awful essays I have to give him T’s on, and keeps insisting it’s all a political plot or what-have-you. I’ve about had it with these old wizarding families who think they’re better than everyone else.”

Lintra paused in her stride and turned an earnest gaze upon Rey. “I do hope you know that not all purebl— I mean, fully magical families are like that,” she told her. “I know you don’t have much to do with the rest of the faculty here, and I do understand feeling like an outsider— but all of us really do think you’re a good teacher.”

“I—” Rey was aghast. Did the rest of the professors really see her as a distant, cautious Muggleborn with prejudices? “I only, it— I just don’t have the time to socialize and things like that. You know. This class means so much to me, especially ‘cause they just implemented it as a core class, and if I fail at teaching it, then they might have to put someone else in. And I like teaching it. I really do.”

“Well, don’t burn out too fast,” said Lintra, smiling. “I heard you’ll be a chaperone on the Hogsmeade trip? If you like, we can kick about Gladrags or something. Time to work it out.”

“Oh, I— I’d like that,” said Rey, startled and pleased. “Thanks, Professor.”

“Call me Tallie, if I can call you Rey, then,” said Lintra, beaming. “I think _Taliesin_ and _Aurelia_ are far too much of a mouthful.”

“Sure you can. Thank you.” Rey felt a smile spreading across her face: she had a new friend, and one found in the unlikeliest of places. 

* * *

The last weekend in November, Rey was sitting alone in her office at eight at night working on essays when a frantic knocking at the door made her jump out of her seat. “Hello?” she called, and opened it quickly, seeing two sixth-year Gryffindor girls in their pajamas and robes and another sandwiched between them with a tear-stained face and red eyes. “What on earth? Weston, Francis, and Burbage, isn’t it? Come inside. What’s happened?”

“We’re fine, Professor, only— only Weston was going up the steps to the girls’ dormitory, and then the charm went off— you know, how the steps turn into a slide and the alarm honks if a boy tries to go up?” Maureen Burbage looked distressed for her friend. “We can’t think why. Scared us all half to death.”

“I can think why. Weston,” said Rey gently, and the student looked at her with large brown eyes, wet and frightened beneath a shock of brown, cut-short hair. “Is there something you’d like to talk to me about privately?”

Weston rubbed a hand over a red, wet nose. “N-no. I mean. Yes.” A gulping sob so loud it almost rattled the windows made Faith Francis cover her ears. 

“All right, then. Francis, Burbage, off to bed and thank you for bringing Weston here.” Rey shooed the girls out gently and sat down, Weston huddling already into one of the comfortable chairs by Rey’s desk. “Talk about anything you like,” she told her student.

“I’m— I’m _not_ a girl,” wept Weston, huddled into a tiny ball in the chair. “I’ve known for a while but I guess, I guess it must have finally set off the alarm and I’m so embarrassed— you said in class that there’s Muggles who can change over in the module on identities—how am I supposed to get that chance? My parents won’t understand. Nobody will understand.”

“More people might understand than you think, Weston,” said Rey gently. “Non-magical people have hormones and surgery and things like that—or even non-surgical options, if you feel that’s more you. Now, I must ask. Is there a name you’d like to use instead of the one you’ve got now? And as you’ve said you’re not a girl, are you a boy? Or neither, or both?”

Weston sniffled. “I— I’m a boy,” he said, voice growing slightly more solid. “A boy. And my name _isn’t_ Penelope anymore, I want it to be Peter.”

“Then I shall make a note at once,” said Rey calmly, and crossed out the old name on her class roll, amending it to read _Peter Weston._ Since all the rolls were linked by a Protean Charm, it would change in every class on the spot. “I must also caution you that the use of Tongue-Tie Jinxes on your classmates when they use your old name is technically prohibited, since it’s using magic in the corridors, though if someone’s being nasty about it I will certainly look the other way. Right.” She clapped her book shut. “We’ll go and find Holdo, as she’s your Head, and explain the situation together. I see no reason why you can’t be moved into the boys’ dormitory tower tonight.”

“I’m friends with all of them anyway,” said Peter, following her out into the corridor. “Have been since first year.” He wiped his eyes. “I guess I’d have to go to St. Mungo’s if I wanted to get corrective, um, things done.”

“Well, either that or a Muggle hospital in London, but that’s really a conversation you ought to have with your parents, and a doctor.” Rey walked along. “There are probably some charms or other that might assist temporarily, but I’m not sure of—”

Solo, cloaked in black and grey as usual, paused in his stride at the end of the hallway, staring at them. “It’s almost nine,” he said, and Weston stepped behind Rey slightly. “Nearly breaking curfew, aren't we, Miss Weston?”

“It’s Mr. Weston, actually. There’s been a mistake in the enrollment all this time, but it’s been sorted,” said Rey very calmly, and watched the surprise scatter the ice on Solo’s face. “We are going to see Holdo about moving Peter here into the boys’ dormitory.”

“I… see,” said Solo, and turned on Weston. “Mr. Weston, wipe your nose and stand up straight, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said very quickly, and did as he was asked. 

“Better. I expect to see you in your proper uniform on Monday.”

“He can’t get into the girls’ dormitories to get his things,” Rey explained.

“Oh, was _that_ the klaxon siren I heard all the way in the dungeon?” Solo’s mouth twitched. “I’ll have the house-elves go up and clean your things out. You’ll need boy’s clothing down to the shoes: they’re all styled differently than the girls’ uniforms, which you no doubt already know. Since you can’t make it to Madam Malkin’s in a day and back, I will handle that myself.” Dark eyes flickered over Peter’s face dispassionately. “And a new haircut. Did you cut it with scissors?”

“Yes, sir. In the bathroom.” Peter’s eyes welled up again. “A month back.”

“Hm. Right. Professor Nieman, if you’ll take him to my office, I’ll be along shortly.” Solo swept off in a swirl of black silk, and Rey fought a laugh: who would have thought Solo, of all people, would have been a solid ally in such times?

* * *

Rey arranged and set out the clothing that Solo had scrounged up while the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor used his wand and a Cutting Charm to carefully trim and shape Peter Weston’s hair into a more angular, masculine style: short on the sides, longer on top, and (most importantly) within school guidelines. Holdo had immediately allowed Peter access to the boys’ dorms, and made sure he would be staying with friends.

While Solo talked about angles and length, Rey looked at the clothing. A Color-Change charm had turned blue and bronze accents to red and yellow, but carefully lettered labels inside the sweaters and shirts still said _K.R._ She did not know who K.R. could be, but hadn’t the Grey Lady called him Ky on Halloween? He must have gone by another name when he was at school. There was no other explanation: these were Solo’s old school clothes and shoes. She wondered why he had held onto them for so long. The pants were far too long in the inseam for Peter, but he could easily charm them into losing some length. Fortunately, the uniform had not changed much in the last thirty years. The shoes were far too big for Weston: at the age Solo must have been when he’d worn them, his feet must have been enormous already. _He was fourteen when he was expelled from Durmstrang,_ she remembered: then these must have been worn when he was fifteen or so. She tried to conjure up an image of a teenaged Solo, but could not: it seemed impossible to imagine him as anything but a six-foot-three, broad-shouldered man with dark, sullen eyes, shadows beneath them.

“And here are the clothes,” said Solo, bringing her out of her daydream. She cleared her throat and handed them over to Peter, who looked flabbergasted. “You may use them for the remainder of the school year if you cannot get to Diagon Alley over the holidays.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Peter. “Really. This is, this is—”

“Not to be spoken about to your friends,” said Solo sternly. “At all. Am I clear, Mr. Weston?”

“Yes, sir. Good night.” Peter scurried out of the office, and Rey shook her head, smiling. 

“Well, Merlin forbid anyone know that Professor Solo has a kind streak to him,” she said lightly as the door clicked shut.

“As if I want a horde of students asking me for personal favors,” he fired back, like he’d been waiting for her to make a comment. 

Rey sighed. “You really are impossible. Fine. Your secret is safe with me. What does this make, now? Five?”

Solo turned to give her a dark look. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can hold them over my head, Nieman.”

“I don’t think I can quite reach that far,” Rey shot back. _Why is he so nasty? Why does he always assume the worst of me?_

His mouth twisted into a scowl. “I did hear about some sort of incident a week back in your class. Or should I say, between classes. Concerning Mrs. Avery.”

Shocked horror snaked down her neck. “ _What?_ ”

“Yes, Professor Lintra was fiercely defensive of you when brought to task by Madame Kalonia when the matron inquired as to why she’d been in the hospital wing. However, I overheard that the headmaster was making enquiries into the whole thing.” He stepped closer, eyes narrowed down like some predator intent on going for the kill. “I confess I have no idea what the details are. Won’t you tell me? You might as well give me some even ground, since you know so many of my secrets and I only know, what— one of yours?”

“I’m not giving you anything,” she spat. “You’re a bloody sneak, is what you are.”

Something sharp and lashing and furious flickered to life in those dark eyes. “Oh? Perhaps I’ll take an idea from you and use Legilimency after all, then. It’s only fair that we are on equal footing, don’t you think, Professor?”

“ _Excuse_ me? Don’t you _dare—”_ Rey brought her wand up, but she was too late: with a snarled “ _Legilimens_ !” Solo was flashing right past her barriers, deep into her mind— she felt the desk she was leaning against in an effort not to fall, even though she saw, in her mind’s eye, her childhood home, her parents, and remembered her seventh-year lessons— _mind blank, empty, nothing—_

“Yes,” said Solo, looming in the corner of her childhood kitchen while her parents fought over her Hogwarts letter, “you should try that. I did think you were intelligent enough to have a difficult time making your mind empty, but perhaps I was wrong.”

_Stop!_ screamed her sobbing eleven year old self at her unseeing parents, knobbly-kneed and gap-toothed with a cheap Asda T-shirt nearly reaching to her knees. Rey could still remember the scent of the detergent her mother had used. Her memories changed again: she was panicking in a school bathroom while blood dropped from between her legs, she was sitting her OWLS and sobbing in a toilet, sick over the possibilities of failure; she was racing to the Ministry for her graduate interview in cheap, shabby robes because they were all she had to wear as a Muggle-born student with no money; she was listening to Mavis Littletree say disdainfully, _well, there’s a position open for a Muggle Studies professor, and you certainly look the part_ as she gave Rey a little sneer. Every memory held some shade of Solo, watching, listening, lurking. _Get out of my head!_ Rey shouted silently, and broke the connection, gasping as she tried to drag herself up to stand by using Solo’s desk in the D.A.D.A. office. 

The lights were low. There was moisture beading on Solo’s forehead. “I shouldn't have—” he began, short of breath, but he had no time to finish. Rey had found her wand, and whipped it at him, screaming aloud with all the rage and power she could muster as she lurched forward off the desk, hair stuck to her head with sweat.

“ _Legilimens!_ ” 

Solo had no time to shield himself. Rey burst into his unguarded mind.

A woman was her first impression as she landed on grass, a pretty woman with long brown braid about her head, maroon-colored robes, and a bright smile who reached out to a little boy of maybe two with dark, thick waves of hair, and the little boy reached up to her, shrieking in joy as flowers burst from the ground, blooming in a thick carpet around him and spreading out to her. _Sweetheart!_ She caught him up and kissed his cheeks, and the sun beamed down on them together.

The image changed. Rey was standing in a corner, next to a trembling older boy of eight or so, who was now unmistakably Solo— the same eyes, the same mouth, the same moles and dark hair, while raised voices she couldn’t quite understand went on in the next room over. She could read the boy’s emotions: he was frightened, he had done something he shouldn’t have done and someone was upset about it, and he was afraid they were going to send him far away...

Again the image changed, and there was Solo again, older and rushing through a dank, freezing hall with his head down and his shoulders hunched as bigger boys chased him down, jeering— the walls were stone, and so was the floor. Rey had no choice but to be dragged along. _Khei, Solo! Napravete trik!_ A professor in a long coat whirled out of a door, and Solo stopped short, looking up at him with a tear-stained face and desperation echoing in his voice. _Please, Profesor Shevchenko, they won’t leave me alone._ Shevchenko just stared, his black beard splitting into an ugly grin. _No? Don’t be a dirty little sneak, coming to me and whining. Make them leave you alone, Solo. I have classes to teach._

“Get out,” gasped a distant echo. Rey couldn’t stop it, didn’t know how: she watched the scene change as Solo jerked to wakefulness, three professors hovering over him in his bed. There were scorch marks on everything in the room and the stench of burned hair filled Rey’s nose— Solo’s nose in memory, making him gag. _He killed them,_ said a voice, and Solo’s horror and shock made him sick. Faces flashed by, faces of dead burnt bodies, grotesque and charred. Rey recoiled from the scene, and fell down into another quick succession of memories and thoughts—

Solo, storming the halls of Hogwarts, head down and shoulders hunched, refusing to make friends, a hard shell of a fifteen year-old boy being called by another name: Solo channeling all his solitude and loneliness into studying, distancing himself from his peers, getting perfect scores on his OWLs and NEWTs: Solo in a dark office as a voice said _it would be a shame if your records from Durmstrang were to be made public, Mr. Ren… or should I say, Mr. Solo…_ Solo doggedly pursuing every Dark creature, beast, and curse that the Auror Offices pointed him at: Solo in dark forests, in wet cities, in secret paths, on ships, on brooms: Solo being asked to take the D.A.D.A. position by a faceless Ministry official to keep an eye on Professor Holdo. The very last thing she saw was _herself,_ sitting down on her first day at the head table in the Great Hall, and through Solo’s eyes she looked small and dowdy, but when she lifted her head and smiled at him to say hello for the first time, he thought she looked—

“ _Enough!’”_ roared a voice, and the spell broke: the images dissolved and she fell forward to the carpet of the D.A.D.A. office. Rey sucked in a gasp of air as the candles flickered and went out, plunging them into cold darkness. The carpet under her hands was rough and thick, and she crawled blindly toward the wall, groping for her wand as Solo made hoarse, strangled sounds from across the room. 

_Light. We need light._ Her head was spinning. She pointed the wand in her shaking hand and about half the candles in the room sputtered back to life, showing the disarray: a knocked-over chair, papers scattered from the desk, and Solo huddled on the floor in a drape of robes, pale hands gripping his head. He was not looking at her, but he was making sounds like he was either trying very hard to stop crying, or as if he was in pain. 

Rey looked away for the present and busied herself tidying the room up, from floor to desk, and relighting all the candles. As she worked, her heart rate slowed to something more normal, and she tried to think of the right thing to say to him. Tears were drying on her own face, and idiotically she thought that when she had been very small, her mum had always made a hot cup of tea whenever something had gone wrong. She didn’t think Solo had tea in his office, though. Americans didn’t go in for tea much. Rey turned around. He was still on the floor. “What— what d’you need?” she ventured. Her own voice sounded very strange to her own ears. 

A single eye, red-rimmed, found her through a fold of cloak and a shock of hair. “What?” he croaked. 

“I said—I said, what do you need? Tea, or...” 

Slowly, he drew himself up to stand, the cloak falling back into place. He was as white as a ghost, two spots of color high on his cheeks, and there was nothing at all in his reddened eyes as he stared at her. “Get out.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Rey had found her voice and her spine, and stood firm. “You heard me. I said no. I’m not leaving until we discuss this. Unless you want me to march up to the headmaster’s office and tell her that you just used Legilimency on me for no other reason than you wanted to be an arse.”

Solo looked almost ashen in the candlelight, and stumbled over to the desk, collapsing heavily into the chair. “Why would you— want to _discuss this?”_

“You really are the most— _confusing_ person,” she snapped, waving her wand. Two steaming mugs of hot cocoa appeared, and she shoved one into his nerveless, enormous hands. “You take the effort and time to reach out to a single student who needs help, who’s afraid, and then five minutes later you’re bullying me for nothing at all and using Legilimency to— what? What was the bloody point of that?”

“There was none,” he said flatly through numb lips. “None. Or if there was a point, my actions clearly had the opposite of the intended effect. Why— why did you stay in my head... I told you to get out.”

“I didn’t know how,” she admitted. “I’ve never— I’ve been rubbish at Legilimency since I took it as an extracurricular in seventh year. Dropped it for Muggle Studies, actually.”

“You certainly have a knack for using your anger to fuel your magic,” said Solo, and sipped the chocolate almost robotically. “Did nobody ever try to teach you Occlumency?”

“No. I left the class before it came up,” said Rey. She took a sip of her own cocoa. “If you can stand me being blunt for a moment…”

“I have a feeling,” said Solo, eyes half-closed as if he was bracing himself for something nasty, “that you are going to be blunt with or without my consent.”

She took a breath, trying to put her racing thoughts in order. “You’re trying to shove me off and be a prick whenever I’m being nice to you. You did it at the Quidditch match, and you did it here. And after what I saw in your head—” The memory of a boy waking up in burned-out bedding, a room full of the stench of singed hair, brought sudden tears to her eyes and a knot to her throat. “After what I saw, how you wouldn’t make friends with anyone afterward— you’re afraid. You’re afraid you’re going to kill someone again. That’s why you won’t let yourself— but the professor who died, I saw him in your memory. He was cruel to you. I don’t understand—”

“There’s a hole— a gap in that memory,” said Solo, his voice gone softer than she’d ever heard it. “The boys— the ones who died— six of them were tormentors. Three were just… casualties: I didn’t know them, but they were sleeping in the same dormitory. And the last one—” His throat caught, his grip on the mug tight as a vise as he struggled to speak. “The last boy was—he was—”

Rey had never seen him like this. She sat down on the opposite chair and tugged it closer so that her knee was almost touching his, and waited, wiping tears from her own eyes. 

“His name was Tae Park. He came from a very old, very dignified wizarding family in Gyeongju. His— his family sent him to Durmstrang for the European experience, the connections. Tae was _talented,_ he had more magical abilities than half the professors and he was doing focused wandless magic by the time he was seven. And he was kind to me. He defended me when— he—” Solo sucked in a shaking breath. “Tae was my only friend,” he finished, eyes closed. Tears were leaking down his face. “My _friend_ . And he died like the others. The other professor— I _liked_ him, he was always looking for reasons to light the fires when the students got cold and he never said anything cruel to anyone. I don’t— I never knew what happened. How I— why it— there was— it was pointless. It’s all pointless. This conversation is pointless: it won’t— it’s—” Solo’s eyes flickered open, focusing on Rey, and there was nothing but brittle, cold fury in them. “Just. Get. _Out._ ”

She stood. Clearly, there was no pushing this further. “I’m going, then. Good night.”

“No, _wait,_ ” he barked, sounding as if he might shake apart. With a shudder, he pulled himself out of the chair towards her, and Rey instinctively flinched, half-afraid he was going to do something terrible. He caught her reaction and jerked himself upright, away from her, his hands clenched at his sides. 

“What?” she whispered, frozen where she stood.

Solo swallowed, his eyes sinking to her mouth, then her eyes, something hard and brittle there. “Nothing. Go. We’re done here.”

“Fine. But if you _ever_ use Legilimency on me again,” she said, low and clear, “you will regret it. Am I clear, Solo?”

“Very.”

With a stifled sob, she turned and left, pressing her hand to her mouth as she went. She’d hardly made it back to her room before she had to pause, crying quietly from sheer humiliation in the cold corridor. _He saw everything: he saw my parents and my fears and the time my period started during Astronomy and when I got sick in a toilet taking my OWLs and everything._ She sucked in a breath, trying to center herself. _But I saw everything, too. His past, his fears..._

_Who was Skywalker?_


	7. Hogsmeade

The castle was in an uproar of preparations for the Yule Ball by the second week of December. As the trip to Hogsmeade drew nearer, Rey finally relented and allowed her class a weekend of no homework: seeing as mid-term exams were the next week and all they’d do was study anyway, she saw no point in causing burnout.

Solo ignored her studiously. When she sat at the high table for breakfast with Iji or Dameron, he walked right to the other end and sat down— if he even showed up at all. The glimpses of him she caught in corridors were strangely hollow-looking and dark beneath the eyes, as if he was ill. She wondered if he was trying to get back to that Dark artifact in the Forest, and if so, whether or not he had succeeded in undoing the web of enchantment around it. Either way, it wasn’t her business. 

Snow fell on the ninth, and the students rejoiced: there was much throwing of snowballs, charming snowballs to throw themselves, and snow-angel making between classes in the courtyards. Rey cheered up a little: it would be a white Christmas, maybe, and that wasn’t so bad. She should stay here for the holidays: it was a sight prettier than sludgy, drudgy London in winter. 

* * *

Tallie caught her on the morning of the tenth, beaming brightly as they collected permission slips. “Some hot Butterbeer’ll really hit the spot, won’t it?”

Rey had to agree, smiling back: the snow was coming down quick, big sticky flakes that melted in her hair and clung to her cloak. Tallie, fashionable as ever, wore a purple lantern-sleeve cloak that belted at the waist and went all the way to the ground, and a matching hat with earmuffs. It made Rey feel a little frumpy in her holey old gloves and wool peacoat with its matching knit cap and  _ not  _ matching old fuzzy pink and yellow scarf, but she was warm, at least. 

“All aboard!” called Iji, waving at them. “Come on, let’s go!” His brown fur ushanka was tied below his chin, and his dark orange cloak was lined with fur to match. “Nice bracing fifteen minute walk or so, eh?”

“Coming!” called Rey, and Tallie fell in with her as the excited Hufflepuff students hurried in front. D’Acy and Hux were in charge of the younger crowd, and Rey could see them as they walked ahead. “Might snow on Christmas,” she said happily. 

“Oh, won’t that be nice?” Tallie looked up at the snowy trees, grinning. “I’ll be home, of course, at Hen-aelwyd. You’re staying here?”

“Thinking about it.” Rey shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “I’ve got a flat in London, but really, this feels more like home. And it’s not as if I have any family to tell I’ll be in one place or the other for Christmas, so.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” said Tallie, giving her an understanding look. “Dead?”

“No, just absent. Not sure, actually. It’s… a bit of a strange thing.” Rey swallowed. “Um, when they found out I was a witch, they sort of… started separating. From me, and from each other. Caused a fuss. And I don’t think I’ve spoken to them in years, really.”

“Oh,” Tallie said, eyes wide. “I imagine that was hard.”

“I used to pretend when I was a kid that I had magical parents somewhere,” said Rey, half-smiling with the silliness of it. “You know, who lived in a fine old estate house out in Wiltshire or somewhere and who had sent me off to live with Muggles to keep me safe. But, ah—” Her throat was unexpectedly choking up, and tears were boiling hot behind her eyes.  _ I can’t cry in front of Lintra!  _ “Um—”

“Lintra,” said a low voice, and she jumped, startled, to see Solo coming up behind them. He was covered throat to toe in shades of black, charcoal grey, and navy: scarf, coat, cloak, gloves. “I apologize for my tardiness.”

“None needed, Professor.” Tallie looked just as startled as Rey felt, and Rey took the opportunity to scrub her eyes and take a few deep breaths. “Do you— will you walk with us? You can go ahead, if you want to. I think most of the students are in a great big herd on the path there.”

“I’ll walk with you, if that’s—agreeable,” said Solo.

“Fine by me. Rey?”

“Fine,” said Rey, nodding at him politely as if they hadn’t smashed into each other’s minds two weeks before. “How— how are your students shaping up for midterms, Professor?”

“Passably. Yours?”

Well, that was something, if only a pretense at politeness. “Fairly well. None of them can keep their minds off the Yule Ball. I think Madam Malkin’s is going to be overrun with orders for robes.”

“Are you attending, Rey?” asked Lintra. “They _will_ need chaperones. The last time we had a ball, it was seventh years only, and Professor Holdo still had to go chase necking couples out of the carriages.”

“Oh, dear,” said Rey, flustered. “Well, to be truthful, I wasn’t really… I mean…”

“What Nieman means to say,” said Solo, eyes gleaming, “is that she has been asked by both Dameron and Iji together, as they intend to go stag, but she’ll likely show up for about twenty minutes before retreating into her office and completing gradework.”

Rey turned on him, outraged at being caught out. “I— I— well, all right,  _ look _ —”

Lintra laughed. “Oh, come off her, Solo. Balls aren’t for everyone.”

“They certainly are not,” said Solo. “Forgive me for the joke at your expense, Nieman. I myself was planning to spend the evening in my own office with a bottle of Firewhisky and a stack of midterm essays.”

Rey lifted her chin a little. “A whole bottle? You should make sure you pace yourself.”

His eyes met hers so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. “Indeed. And as I have been informed by a very observant person, Pryde has packets of QuikSober in his desk drawer, so if I find that I am in need, I will help myself.”

Lintra smiled. “Who on earth told you that? A student?”

“No, not one of my students, Professor. Someone with a very even head on their shoulders, who… came to my aid when I needed it badly.” He was looking straight ahead, not at Rey, but she felt her face flame regardless at the unexpected praise. 

“Well— well. I didn’t know you had such a friend,” said Lintra, still smiling. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t call them a friend.”

“No? More of a professional acquaintance?” asked Rey boldly, pretending to look at the trees.

“Hm. No, I would say more than that.” Solo’s voice was as flat and rough as ever.

“What a riddle,” said Lintra, looking very bemusedly over at Rey as if to silently say  _ what on earth? _ “More than an acquaintance, but not a friend? He must be a rival, then? Or your sworn enemy?”

Solo thought about that a moment. “I am unsure, exactly, of the category,” he finally said. “We have been at odds with each other and done harm to each other. But we have also, in my opinion, bordered on an… unprofessional familiarity. On more than one occasion. I have been made aware they believe I assume the worst of them, but that is not the case.”

“Sounds like a communication error,” said Rey pointedly. “You should have a proper talk about it.”

His voice was dark, and carried an edge to it when he answered. “I don’t believe that would be wise, Professor.”

“Why not?” asked Lintra blithely. “Why, I wouldn’t be friends with Nieman if I didn’t speak to her straightforwardly and clear up a misunderstanding, would I? You might find an ally. Oh, look— there’s the Three Broomsticks. Shall we get Butterbeer and walk about after?”

“I told Iji I’d assist with the fifth years. Excuse me.” He swept off, and Tallie looked at Rey. 

“What in the name of Bran’s blessed nose was  _ that  _ about?”

“Oh, Lord,” mumbled Rey, dragging her mitten down her scarlet face. “I’ll tell you over Butterbeers, but you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.”

* * *

Of course, Rey left out the bits about Durmstrang and all that when she told Tallie the story of the accidental Legilimency— it wasn’t as if that was pertinent to anyone but herself and Solo. Regardless, Tallie still stared at her in shock as she retold it all, gulping down Butterbeer between pauses. When she was done, the Transfiguration professor leaned back in her seat.

“Do you think he… um, fancies you?” she offered, with the most extraordinary expression on her face.

_ “ What? _ ” yelped Rey, horrified. Several students turned to stare, but she waved them off and they turned back around to their own drinks. “What?” she hissed again, much lower. “No! He doesn’t—  _ anyone, _ that’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even have friends.”

“Bran’s beard,” said Tallie wearily. _“_ _ You’re _ the closest thing he’s got to a friend— apart from Hux, maybe, but even Hux keeps at arms’ length, and I’m sure he never used Legilimency on him in a— what, sort of rage? Fit?”

“I think he was trying to shove me back,” Rey admitted. “He’s averse to being close to people— I did see that much in his head. Maybe he was afraid we were becoming too friendly.”

“Too friendly? After you only ribbed him a bit?” Tallie sighed. “Solo’s got a stick up his backside, ramrod-straight. You ought to throw him for a loop. Show up at the Yule Ball looking absolutely fabulous, knock his socks off _. _ ”

Rey laughed. “That’s a nice thought, but I really don’t have the money for a new set of dress robes. I— I actually don’t even  _ have _ dress robes.”

“Well, if you’ll let me, I’ll take you to the new Twilfitt and Tattings shop down the road, and see what we can’t do. You ought to have  _ something _ you feel nice in.”

“I couldn’t ask you to pay for that,” Rey said, panic rising in her chest. “I really—”

“Aurelia, come  _ on _ . I’ve got so much gold in Gringotts I’m practically drowning in it, I couldn’t possibly spend it all if I tried, I inherited a pile of Galleons from both my parents and I don’t have any children or a partner yet, so.” Tallie set her mug down. “It’s final. Dress robes, and maybe some everyday ones, if you like. It’ll be worth it to see the look on everyone’s face when you walk in, even if you’re only there for twenty minutes.”

Rey tried to catch her bearings. “Oh— okay,” she managed, strangely excited about the idea. “Then let’s go.”

* * *

With Hux and D’Acy promising to keep an eye on the fourth years, Tallie pulled Rey into Twilfitt and Tattings. The storefront was singularly classical and spoke of quiet wealth. The round front windows were painted robin’s egg-blue on the frames, and the door was white with a brass knob. Rey hesitated as Tallie opened it, ringing a little bell that was charmed to rain down fine glittery dust on their heads: this was a nicer shop than anything she’d ever been in before, and she wondered if they’d take a look at her clothes and chase her from the store. 

“Really, there was a nice one in that secondhand shop we passed,” she protested softly.

Tallie shook her head. “With all that powdery-purple lace and nonsense? Ten years out of date. Oh, hello, Madame Marguerite.” The shopkeeper had appeared: a severe-looking woman of middle age with elegant black hair twisted into a bun and a fashionable little hat tilted sideways, wearing floor-length cranberry robes. 

“‘Ello, Miss Lintra. So nice to see you again.” She was French, from her accent, and a smile was playing in her black eyes. “Perhaps you ‘ave come for ze new winter cloaks? They ‘ave just come in from Diagon Alley.”

“Perhaps another time. I’ve come today to dress my friend, Miss Nieman.” Rey stepped forward, feeling like a Potions ingredient about to be chopped up and measured out. “She needs dress robes for the Yule Ball.”

“Ah! Dress robes! Indeed.” Marguerite circled her, eyeing her up. “Gracious, child. Do remove ‘alf of those things: I cannot do my work without a figure. Zere is a changing room in ze back. Go.”

Rey hustled into the changing room, which was enormous and furnished with a huge mirror, a stuffed armchair in the French style, and a crystal chandelier.  _ I am entirely mad _ , she thought, stripping hurriedly down to her turtleneck and wool tights. Hopefully, that would be enough. The shop was delightfully warm, but she didn’t fancy being naked in front of a woman she hardly knew. “Is this all right?” she called out, and Madame Marguerite’s head poked back in through the curtain, eyeing her up. 

“Just fine.” She clicked her tongue, and a tape measure flew out of a box, darting around Rey and measuring various body parts as she stood. “What sort of style do you like, Mademoiselle?”

“I— I don’t know, really,” said Rey, afraid the tape measure would nip her in the eye. “Comfortable?”

“Hm. You ‘ave a fine figure. Good strong legs, good proportions. What about a robe with a slit up ze leg to show? I ‘ave some designs from Paris…” and with a flick of a rosewood wand, out came a large catalogue, flipping itself open with pages on pages of folded pictures so Rey could see the latest designs in dress robes and haberdashery. 

“I— I think maybe not that much skin,” she stammered. “Um, maybe— maybe something with a sort of neckline like that?” She pointed at a robe with an almost heart-shaped neckline— a sweetheart neckline, she remembered in the nick of time. “Sweetheart neckline? Uh, and I don’t like anything too scratchy or uncomfortable to sit down in.”

“Silk velvet,” said Madame decisively. “Not cotton velvet. Too stiff.” Rey hadn’t know any sort of velvet apart from the crushed sort in fancy dress costumes existed, and tried to pretend she knew exactly what Madame was talking about. “I think… green might suit your complexion. No, wait.” She flicked her wand and swatches of fabric flew out of another basket, lining up by her face. “Mm. No, perhaps red? Sets off your skin tone well. Although ze wrong shade will make you look a bit orange.”

“I like blue,” Rey managed. 

“Blue! Ah, yes.” The swatches disappeared and were replaced by more, all in shades of blue. Rey held still as the swatches were held by her face. “Mm. Not zis cobalt color: makes you look yellow. Navy, perhaps— ooh, what do you zink of zis one?”

Rey looked at the swatch. It was a dusty blue velvet, and where the light touched it, it looked almost silvery-teal. The swatch was dotted with little spangles like stars. “I like it,” she said. 

“Zen you shall ‘ave it,” said Madame decisively. “Stand still, please.”

Rey stood still while Madame waved her wand and a three-dimensional sketch made in gleaming silver light appeared, life-size and in her measurements: a robe with long sleeves, a belted waist, a flowing skirt, and a sweetheart neckline. “'Ow do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” said Rey, astounded. 

“Well, step in. Try it on.”

Rey eased into the glittering silhouette of light and looked in the mirror: it appeared as if she was wearing strands of glowing silver, outlined in the shape of the robe. “I love it. Could you maybe, uh, bring the neckline up about half an inch?”

Madame nodded and with a flick of her wand, the neckline had risen. “Very lovely. Conservative in fashion, but fashion-forward in cut and style. I shall have it done by ze end of ze day. Will you be wanting a hat to match?”

“Oh, um, no,” said Rey, suddenly embarrassed that she was spending so much of Tallie’s money. “I’ll just have my hair done, I guess.” By  _ done, _ of course, she meant she’d brush it and leave it be, but Madame Marguerite’s eyes lit up. 

“Oh,  _ oui! _ Yes, you  _ must _ see a hairdresser: you ‘ave such lovely color to your hair. Perhaps some curls or a wave? And of course, a simple jeweled comb will do beautifully. It’s such a rich fabric zat you must not go  _ too _ elaborate.”

“Of course,” said Rey, who had never owned anything made of sterling silver, let alone a jeweled hair comb, in her life. 

“Well, zen. Go on and step out.” Rey emerged from the gleaming lines, and Madame pointed her wand. The design compacted, separated, laid itself out flat, and yards of blue silk velvet came flying out of a bolt on the wall, a pair of shears snipping away cheerily. “It really ‘as been such a nice uptick in business since ze old owners sold ze shop and ran off to Russia,” said Madame Marguerite, ushering Rey back into the dressing room. “Silly old fools. Didn’t want to cater to ze  _ lowly _ among us. But why ever not, I always thought, when all money is just ze same, no?” She smiled at Rey, who smiled back. “Now, is zere anything else I can do for you, Miss Nieman?”

“Oh, a cloak.  _ Please _ let me buy you a proper cold-weather cloak,” begged Tallie, darting back in from where she’d been engrossed in fashion magazines. “And then I’ll need a new robe, too.”

“Fine,” Rey relented, sighing. “I’d better find a good way to make this all up to you.”

“Well,” said Tallie, laughing, “just introduce me to Dameron at the ball so I’ll be able to dance with someone who doesn’t step on my toes.”

“Oh, is  _ that _ it?” Rey teased as the tape measure came back for more. “Dameron, really?”

Lintra had the grace to flush. “He’s just very— he’s so— athletic. You know. I played a half season with the Holyhead Harpies, before I decided to take up teaching.”

“Well, there you go, you’ll have something to talk about,” Rey told her. “And of course I’ll introduce you. I’ll do it now, if you like. I bet we’ll run into him outside.”

“Hmph. Men,” said Madame, tilting her chin so she could look down her nose. “It seems it is not only ze students looking forward to ze ball, is it? Miss Nieman, hold still—ze measurements are very precise!” 

* * *

Rey and Tallie left the shop with their arms full of brown paper parcels wrapped in twine, and the snow was falling so fast that they had to duck back into the Three Broomsticks and stamp the snow off their boots in a warm crowd of yammering children. “It’s getting awfully dark,” said Tallie, shaking her head. “Goodness, we might have to stay the night. I wouldn’t want to risk the students walking back in this, even with all eight of us doing Warming Spells to melt the snow.”

“Hey! There you are, Nieman!” Dameron and Iji hurried over in the pack of students, and Tallie, to her credit, remained serene. “Thought we’d lost you! And you, Lintra. Got some shopping done?”

“Yes,” said Tallie, smiling. “But you can’t see until the ball, Professor.”

“Merlin’s beard,” said Iji, chuckling. “It’s not a wedding dress.” He feigned sudden shock. _“_ __I_ s _ it?”

“Course it isn’t, come off it,” said Rey, shouldering him with a laugh. “It’s a surprise, is all. Where’s D’Acy?”

Dameron waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, she took Solo to help her track down some unaccounted for seventh-years. Likely necking at Madam Puddifoots to wait out the snow.”

“We have the rest well in hand,” said Iji, peering over his shoulder. “Well, if we do have to stay in the village overnight, they’ve got some flats over shops and such. Heaven knows where we’re going to put a couple hundred students, though.”

“Three hundred sixty-three students, divided up among sixty-six shops,” said Rey immediately. “That makes... five and a half students per shop flat, or maybe bunking on the floors if necessary. Add in the chaperones— us— that’s Hux, Solo, me, Tallie, Dameron, Iji, D’Acy, and Kin. Eight? We can split up and stay with groups.”

“Wicked quick with maths, aren’t you?” asked Finn, impressed. 

“Come on, it’s just simple division.” Rey told him. “Maybe we ought to pair off? Tallie and Dameron can watch the fourth years, you and me watching the fifth years, Solo and Hux watching sixth, D’Acy and Kin watching seventh years?”

“I’m beginning to like that idea more and more. Look at the sky,” said Dameron, staring out the window. Rey peered out and sighed: the clouds were black and ugly, promising a bad storm, and the snow was beginning to whirl around in eddies, nearly whiting out the street. “D’Acy should be the one to call it. She’s still not here.”

“I’ll send a Patronus to find her,” said Rey quickly. “Tell her where we are. Did someone take a head count already of all the students?”

“Yes,” said Iji. “Only twelve seventh-years are missing: everyone else is either here or hunkering down at the Hog’s Head. Kin’s with Hux over there keeping a lid on things.”

“Good.” Rey pulled out her wand and cast the Patronus Charm: her silvery osprey burst out of the tip of her wand. That quieted down the whole pub: the students were fascinated. “Go find Professor D’Acy,” she said quietly to the bird. “Tell her we’re all accounted for except for twelve, and we’re at the Three Broomsticks. Lead her to the Hog’s Head.”

The osprey bobbed its head and flew through the oak door. Rey sighed and put her wand away. “That’ll do for now,” she told Tallie. “We can start separating everyone by year. Maybe it won’t be that bad of a storm after all.”

“Never hurts to be prepared anyway,” said Dameron. “Right. Iji, help me sort out the kids.”

* * *

As they were sitting by the fire sipping hot cider, D’Acy’s patronus came flying through the door, bounding up to Rey in a cloud of silvery light. It was a large hare, and it spoke in her voice.

_ “ Message received. Safe at Hog’s Head. All twelve students are here, with a hundred and fifty-three others. Please double-check.” _

“We should have a hundred and sixty-nine.” Rey turned to look as the hare vanished in a swirl of light, and Poe nodded. 

“That’s exactly right.”

_ Whew. _ No students lost, then. The relief fueled her own Patronus again. “All numbers accounted for. We have a hundred and sixty-nine. Awaiting your call on whether or not to return to Hogwarts.” She let the osprey go, and no sooner had it left than the door to the Three Broomsticks burst open, letting in a gust of frozen air and snow and someone swathed in a cloak from head to toe.

“What the—” Dameron leaped from his chair and flicked his wand at the door, closing it. “Hux? Is that—”

The figure pulled a navy-blue scarf from around its head, and Rey felt the strangest sensation dart through her belly: it wasn’t Hux, it was Solo, and he looked half-frozen. His thick lips were pale, and his nose was red. “We’re staying overnight,” he said hoarsely. “D’Acy already called it. There’s no way we can bring everyone back at this point, not with all the Heating Charms in the world.”

“I... I just sent another Patronus to ask,” said Rey, feeling very much as if she’d been knocked off something.

“Yes, I noticed.” He crossed to the fire and allowed himself to hold his hands out to the warmth, shivering. Snow was melting in the creases of his cloak. “D’Acy would like Professor Iji to Apparate over to the Hog’s Head, if he doesn’t mind. I’ll stay here.”

Rey’s mouth fell open. “But—”

“Sure, I’ll go,” said Iji easily, and turned in midair: he was gone. 

“Where are we all going to sleep?” asked Tallie, looking at a hundred and sixty-nine students who were sitting in little groups, talking in low voices and staring around worriedly.

“The Three Broomsticks has private rooms upstairs,” Rey told her. “Madame Rosmerta already said she can set us up just fine.”

“Tidy,” said Tallie, resolved to put a strong face on.

“Don’t worry,” said Dameron. “We’ll be fine. Nice and cosy here, isn’t it? And enough food and drink for us to not starve. Sure, we’ll be grubby in the morning, but it’s nothing a hot bath at the castle won’t fix.”

Solo was still standing by the fire, eyes half-closed, as if he was trying to bake himself. Rey hurried to the counter, paid for a mug of hot mulled mead, and brought it back to him, stepping around worried teenagers. “Drink this,” she said, pressing it into his icy hands. Solo started as if he’d been lost in thought.

“Wh— oh. Nieman.” He brought the mug to his lips and gulped. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” She turned and stood on the nearest table. “May I have your attention, please!” she called, and every young eye turned towards her, wide and waiting. “Thank you. As you’ve probably guessed, um, the storm’s really very strong, so we’ll be spending the night here due to the very kind hospitality of Madame Rosmerta.” The sixty-something woman behind the bar waved, smiling as students swiveled to stare. “It’ll be a bit cramped, but we’ll manage.” She turned to Dameron. “Boys or girls on the first floor?”

“Girls,” he said immediately. “Boys on the second.”

“Right." She turned back. "Girls will be on the first floor. Boys will be on the second floor.”

“And we’ll mix the genders of the teachers up to be fair,” said Lintra quickly, looking at Dameron so fast that Rey thought for a moment she imagined it. “Myself and Professor Dameron will be overseeing the girls. Professor Solo and Professor Nieman will handle the boys.”

Rey’s heart sank into her gut as Solo turned around, fixing Tallie with a half-stunned expression. “Don’t you think it’s more appropriate for yourself and Professor Nieman to be on the girls’ floor and myself and Dameron on the—”

“No, she’s right: we need a good strong personality on each floor, and neither myself or Tallie are exactly authoritative, are we?” Rey found herself saying, to her utter shock. Solo gave the room a long look and threw back the rest of his mead, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Very well.” He raised his voice. “Gentlemen!” The boys all looked up, stricken. “Everyone stand. Bring your personal effects if you have them. Upstairs. Now.”

Rey turned back to Tallie. “Have a good night,” she said, pretending to wink as the rush of boys scrambling for their things filled the pub.

“Oh,  _ stop, _ ” said Tallie, beaming. “I owe you one. Especially making you bunk down with Solo. So sorry.”

“Never mind it. Can I leave the things with you? Just so the boys don’t accidentally step on it or—”

“Oh, sure!” Tallie took the parcels. “I’ll guard them with my life. Upstairs, hurry.”

* * *

The rooms upstairs were small, but there were a lot of them, and after a few sneaky Expanding Charms, Solo and Rey got everyone settled in beds, on the floor by fireplaces, and wrapped in blankets as the storm howled outside.

It was nearly nine o’clock by the time they’d managed to get the boys to quiet down, and Rey leaned on the railing upstairs, trying to catch her breath and not faint from exhaustion.  _ Absolute mayhem.  _ One fourth-year had gotten so hyped up on the adventure that he hadn’t been able to stop laughing hysterically, which made eight others join in until Solo had performed a sobering Ungiggle Charm and sternly sent them all to bed in different rooms. That had required reshuffling, and she was absolutely drained.

A heavy step on the landing of the hallway met her ears, and she looked up to see Solo, who had shed his heavy cloak and scarf, and was wearing a black knitted vest over a white thermal shirt, which he’d pushed up to the elbows, his wand in one hand. It didn’t look too bad, she thought, surprised: a lock of wavy dark hair hung across his forehead, and his eyes looked tired. “Damn,” he said, sounding drained as he dragged his empty hand down his face. “Damn,  _ damn.” _

“What?” she asked, rolling herself to lean on the rail with one elbow.

“I forgot to make a space for us to sleep.” He caught himself, coughing. “I mean. I mean a place for you and a place for me, of course. Not— not a place where we would sleep together.”

Rey was so tired she couldn’t even laugh. “Oh. Right. I think I could sleep standing up, actually. Just here. On the railing.” She yawned. 

Solo made a small sound— was that a snort? Was he halfway laughing at her? “An admirable feat, but not a practical one. I think there’s a broom closet up here we might have forgotten about— I could expand on it and make you a room.”

“Shame you can’t just make a room out of thin air.” Rey shoved off and plodded along behind him, trying to keep herself awake. 

“That’s the Second Law of Magic. You can’t create space where there is none to begin with, only add or subtract from it.”

“Yes, I know,” she said crossly. “Don’t suppose you could magic me up a hot bath?”

“If only,” he muttered. “Ah, here’s the closet. Let’s see.” It was a very small closet. Solo knocked on the walls, parsing out the space, and sighed. “Right.” He aimed his wand, mumbling under his breath, and Rey watched as a small fireplace with a grate sprang out of the wall, as a bed popped up out of the floor complete with pillows, blankets, and a coverlet, as a window parted and covered itself with glass, looking out into the back alley behind the Three Broomsticks. She pointed her wand with a soft  _ incendio  _ and a fire sprang to life in the grate, illuminating it all in a bright, warm glow. 

“Thanks,” Rey said, closing her eyes and enjoying the warmth on her face. “Where are you going to sleep, if I’ve taken the last cupboard?”

“The floor in the hall,” he said immediately, every line of his face drawn with strain. 

“The—really? In the middle of the winter? In a blizzard?”

“I do have a wand, Nieman,” Solo said.

“Well, I hope it’s comfortable, then.” She tugged off her scarf, hanging it on the bed’s footboard.

“More comfortable than losing my way and freezing outside. Do you know how I got back to the Three Broomsticks?” Solo’s eyes were suddenly intent, dark and alive as he looked at her, and Rey felt trapped as the firelight flickered, warming her. 

“No,” she said finally.

“No? Interesting.” He stepped closer, just a little. “Your Patronus made it to the Hog’s Head. We heard the message. D’Acy told me we’d be staying, mentioned she’d like Iji at the Hog’s Head because she felt he’d be better able to handle the older students, and started in on her answer. And yet, your osprey stayed there, cocking its head. Looking at us. At... me. And it flew back out the door… I followed it. It stayed behind, even after D'Acy's had overtaken us, and led me all the way back here, and disappeared when I opened the door as the second one left. White. Silvery, glowing like a beacon in the snow...” Solo shuddered. “Why did you agree to come up here?”

Rey gulped. Her throat felt very dry: why on earth had her Patronus done such a thing? “I— Lintra, she… fancies Dameron. A bit. I said I’d, um—”

Solo’s mouth twitched. “Facilitate such an unprofessional relationship? I  _ am _ surprised. I shouldn’t be. You are very full of surprises.”

Rey was far too tired to be catty. “Am I? I thought I was a mousy little teacher with a dreadful need to be valued.”

“I was unfair in that assessment. We all… desire recognition. To be valued. Self-actualized.” Solo leaned against the wall. “But of course— other things must come first as a foundation.”

“If you’re talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy, you can just say so,” said Rey bluntly. “I’m a witch, not an idiot.”

Solo actually  _ chuckled _ : a corner of his mouth pulled back briefly in the closest thing to a smile she’d ever seen on his face. “No, I know. Sorry. It’s late, and I’m standing here droning on. Good night, Nieman.”

“Night,” she said, and watched him go, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

In the morning, Rey woke before anyone else, grubby and sweaty from sleeping in her clothes, and cracked the door silently to see if Solo had really slept on the floor.

He had: as far away from her door as the landing would allow, fully dressed and leaning against the railing as if he had dropped off, still wrapped in his cloak— but he was curled slightly on his side, facing her, with one large hand stretched out in his sleep toward the door to her glorified broom closet and the other tucked into his broad chest. He’d cast blue flames into a jar, which sat by his feet: the landing was warm. 

She looked at him for a moment. Even in sleep, he still looked worn out— dark circles under his eyes, a sullen set to his mouth.  _ I should have made him take the bed. I’m younger. _

Her motion to shut the door woke him up as soon as the small, quiet  _ snick _ of the lock sounded. Solo jerked up so fast it startled her, nearly making her trip, and brought his wand to attention— she saw he was grasping it in the hand tucked to his chest. Bleary, reddened eyes found her. “Aurelia— Nieman,” he said groggily, and cleared his throat. “Ex-excuse me.” One long leg shot out and almost knocked the jar of flames over, but he caught it with a quick  _ Leviosa _ and floated it up to his face. “We should... get the students up. Has the storm stopped?”

“It looks like it, out the window,” Rey said. “Snow's four feet deep. Should I ask about breakfast?”

“No, we should go straight back home— to Hogwarts,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You didn’t— hear any disturbances in the night?” There was something tight in his voice, and Rey suddenly understood his behavior: to have been asleep in such close quarters with three hundred students and three other professors couldn’t have been easy on him.

“Not a single one,” said Rey. “Did you... fall asleep sitting up?”

“Yes.” He left it at that and stood up, tucking his wand away as he made for the bedrooms.


	8. The Yule Ball

“I can’t do this,” said Rey, eyes squeezed shut tight. She was sitting on a velvet-upholstered dressing table in Tallie Lintra’s rooms, her head had been slathered in potions and her hair rolled into curlers and her face poked and washed and she was terrified to open her eyes. “Oh, Merlin’s arse, I just know I’m going to look like a show poodle.”

“The ball starts in thirty minutes!” Tallie’s voice was amused, but sympathetic. “I promise you I can change it if you don’t like it. Just trust me. Right?”

“Right,” Rey said, and took a deep breath before opening her eyes and focusing on herself in the mirror. The person looking back at her was… well, it wasn’t  _ not _ her. That was her face, with its wide mouth, but some clever application of makeup had made her eyes look bigger, the lashes longer and darker, the cheeks slightly pinked. And her hair… Rey reached up in amazement. Her hair fell in smooth, sleek waves, swept away from the right side of her head to fall down the left side, secured with a silver clip Tallie was loaning her. “Oh,” she said, bewildered. “I thought it would be…”

Tallie laughed, and Rey turned to look at her: her dress robes were pale silvery-lavender silk, with an attached cloak that fell over her right shoulder, leaving her left arm bare, and her hair was done up into an elegant French twist. A single silver-and-diamond tennis bracelet adorned her left wrist. “And now for the dress!”

Rey got up and opened the parcel, half-terrified it would all be wrong again, or not fit, or… but as she lifted the gown out and put it on, she realized that it fit perfectly, and what was more, it was comfortable as anything, and soft as— well, silk velvet. “Well,” she said, staring down at herself. “I suppose—”

“Oh, you look  _ perfect,” _ gushed Tallie. “I’m ever so sorry I nabbed Dameron for the ball— but you’ll look splendid with Iji.”

“Shame we couldn’t go all together,” Rey told her, smiling. The skirt was so full she could hardly stop swishing it. “Oh, look at that! A wand pocket.” There was a long, narrow pouch sewn into the skirt, and she slipped her wand into it. “Madame really thought of everything.”

“She’s brilliant, isn’t she?” Tallie checked her reflection again. “I really have got to thank you again for roughing it upstairs with Solo and the boys that day.”

“Oh, don’t mind it,” said Rey brightly. “I’m glad you had some, er, time with Dameron.” Truth be told, she rather liked the idea of the two of them together— especially since Dameron had stopped hounding her at breakfast about Quidditch, saving those conversations for Tallie— but she couldn’t help but feel a little regret about the ball: it was more fun to attend with two friends than with just one.  _ It doesn’t matter _ , she thought, smoothing down her skirt and slipping on her only “formal” shoes— a pair of old black ballet slippers that had seen better days and about sixty No-Smell charms.  _ I’m only going for a few minutes anyway.  _

* * *

The entrance hall, decorated in fairy lights and frosted snow, was packed with excited students in dress robes and in non-magical style formalwear as Rey and Tallie made their way through to Iji and Dameron, who were trying to maintain order as they held the door.  “Lintra! You— wow.” Dameron, sleekly formal in dark red and brown robes, blinked as if he’d been hit with a Stunning Spell. “Wow.”

“Hi, Finn,” said Rey, beaming brightly. Iji had elected to wear his best: a navy blue and gold flowing agbada with a matching navy fila, pointed at the top. “Don’t you look dashing!”

“Ah, thanks,” said Finn, grinning back. “And you look—whew.” He whistled through his teeth. “Who knew you cleaned up so nicely?”

“Shut up,” she said, laughing. “Tallie did my hair. Looks good, yeah?”

“Very good. Now, make sure you don’t get crushed when I open the door, right? On three.” He turned to Dameron, checking his pocket watch. “Stroke of eight, open it up.”

“You got it,” said Dameron, guiding Tallie away from the doors. He tapped his throat with his wand and his voice boomed out, every student quieting at once. “Attention! Students will pair off and form an orderly line when they enter the Great Hall! You will comport yourself properly, and not rush the tables. Queue up, please!”

* * *

The Great Hall had been transformed into a winter wonderland. The walls and beams and arches had been enchanted to look like a wintry night sky, and all around the perimeter of the room, enormous Christmas trees stood with icicles, oranges, and ribbons hanging from their branches. Huge round tables of pale blue ice stood at intervals, holding a buffet-style Yuletide feast: mince pies, ham, beef, orange-chocolate puddings, pineapple brulee, and a hundred other things Rey could hardly even pay attention to: she was too busy looking at the room.

Snow was falling lightly from far above, and she was glad of her long sleeves as she hurried along to the sides of the room with Finn to allow for more students to pour in. “The dancing’ll start in a moment.” He shrugged. “I guess you’ll want to head for the food, though. Me too, if you don’t want to dance.”

“Merlin’s pants,” she said, laughing. “Yeah. I don’t dance very well. Suppose you ask—” she scanned the crowd and lit on the Tico sisters, arm-in-arm in their greeny-yellow and brown-gold dress robes, “one of the Ticos to dance, though? They look like they came with each other.”

“Oh, did they?” Finn looked over. “I do quite like Professor Rose. You know she’s one of the best Care of Magical Creatures professors we’ve had here in some time. After old Skywalker quit, I mean.”

Rey blinked. “I— huh?”  _ Skywalker? _ Her heart leaped strangely, thudding sideways: she’d nearly forgotten about that name, and now...

Finn chuckled. “Ah, that was before your time. Yeah, old Professor Skywalker was something else. They used to say his grandmother had Cherokee blood, but that’s a load of toss: any American’s probably got  _ some _ native blood if they emigrated before the 1880s. He did have a way with animals, though. I think he quit— mm, must have been the year before you started here. After that we had Demeter Wrangly— she was a pushover, really, remember? Didn’t make us do anything more difficult than flobberworms.”

“Why’d Skywalker quit?” asked Rey, astounded at the idea of any Hogwarts professor just up and throwing in the towel. 

“Eh, something about a family emergency. Never came back, though. Heard he was living the life of a hermit out somewhere in the North.” Finn squared his shoulders. “Right. I’m going to ask Rose to dance.”

“Oh— sure, go on then,” said Rey, and stood there awkwardly as Finn swept off across the floor and the band tuned up. Skywalker? There’d been a Skywalker here, then? Surely not Solo’s grandfather, the wizard who’d had something to do with the Cold War in America— his father, maybe? Or some uncle? A cousin? 

She turned, lost in thought, and froze. Across the open dance floor, Solo was standing by a resplendently (and very purply) robed Professor Holdo, and he was staring right at her. Her breath caught in her throat: she was stuck, trapped, she should run—

He wasn’t standing, not anymore. No, Solo was actually walking over to her— right to her. The room was chilly. She felt very small and stupid, like a child caught playing dress-up with someone else’s fine clothes. He paused six feet away, and swallowed. “Professor,” he said.

“Professor,” she returned. He looked terrifyingly intimidating in his dress robes, his dark, thick hair combed in soft waves away from his severe face. It must be intimidating, the way he looked, or her belly wouldn’t be twisting into knots, making her breath come short and ragged and her face go red. Fear: that was this sensation, right?

_ Right? _

“You—” His dark gaze swept down over her, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “I— you—” Both cheeks colored.

“Iji went to ask Professor Tico to, to dance,” she burst out, desperate to save herself from being embarrassed: he was going to make some comment about how silly she looked, she knew it. “Um. You— you came alone, I guess.”

“You guess correctly,” replied Solo. “It— the Hall looks very— very—”

“It looks very beautiful,” said Rey, looking up at the icy rafters nervously. 

“Yes. Beautiful.” The tone of voice was suddenly softer, and Rey darted her gaze back to him. He wasn’t looking at the ceiling, or the room. Just at her. “Do you—dance, Nieman?”

“Do I—” Bewildered, Rey blinked. “Um. Well, you know. Not well. At all.”

“That’s fine. As long as you can follow my lead.” He extended a hand, bare and pale and huge, and Rey’s heart thudded strangely in her chest: was he— he _was_ — 

“Dancers, take your places!” called Headmaster Kanata, her tiny form glittering bright gold from her robes as she waved her wand. The school band tuned up, at the ready.  Rey couldn’t do anything else. She gave Solo her hand, and her fingers felt tiny and fragile as he led her out to the floor with stunned gazes following them— her hands, she’d always thought her hands were so ugly and knobbly and rough with their bitten-down nails, but compared to his—

A hand found her waist, resting there gently. She could not breathe. Solo was inches away, huge and formidable and holding her waist with one hand and her hand in the other. “It’ll be a waltz,” he said softly. “Put your free hand on my shoulder, Nieman.”

“On your—” Scarlet, Rey obeyed, thinking absurdly of a Disney film. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, a kiss breaking a spell. His robes were soft, thin silk, black as night, and the vest underneath was a shimmery, winter blue color, almost silvery, like the full moon. “What do I—”

“Just follow,” said Solo, and the music started. She tried her best to count the steps, but failed utterly, treading on his toes and on her own gown: she’d never had any kind of coordination when it came to this kind of thing. “No, now you’re trying to lead,” said Solo, a note of amusement in his voice.

“No, I’m not—” she began indignantly, trying to look over his broad shoulder. “You’ve got to look out, we’ll hit someone.”

“I’m guiding  _ you, _ here,” he said, pressing on her waist. His hand was so big she thought it might go all the way around her body. “Don’t try to count in your head. Don’t think about people staring. Trust me, if you can. Let me move you. We’re connected by your hand, there— and by my hand, here.” He squeezed her fingers gently.

“Oh,” she managed, and let herself relax a little, listening to the music trip lightly along:  _ one-two three, one-two three.  _ Solo guided her firmly, pushing and pulling, using not only his hand but his whole body to lead, and Rey found to her shock she was no longer stepping on her own dress or on his feet, and even more shocking— she was  _ enjoying _ dancing with Solo. She only hoped her hands weren’t too sweaty.

He nodded sternly as he swept her through another circle. “You’ll note the tension between my shoulder and your elbow,” he intoned, as if he was giving a lecture. “The tension must be maintained. So if I move away, you follow. If I press toward you, you turn. Can you feel it?”

“Yes, I can feel it,” she managed. “So you direct me by the, by my waist. And you turn me with your shoulder?”

“Correct. Would you like to attempt a spin? There’s room.”

“A—right. Sure. How do I—”

Solo’s mouth flickered in what she could now recognize as an amused expression, and pushed her off him, keeping hold of her hand with his, and she felt the momentum: she used it to spin out, and her full skirt whirled. She thought she heard some  _ ooh _ s from the crowd, and Solo pulled her back in easily, adjusting his step so she didn’t crash into him. “Precisely like that,” he said.

“Where did you learn to dance?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief. 

“You pick up things here and there,” he told her. “But a good leader has to be flexible. You have to match what you’re given and redirect movement on the go. You can’t be rigid.”

“I see that,” Rey said breathlessly. 

He nodded. “So. The question remains. Are you really planning to go back to your office and grade essays instead of dancing with m—many of your peers?”

“I don’t know yet,” Rey told him. Was he— was he trying to  _ flirt? _ “I’ll have to make up my mind about it.” She let herself grin up at him. “Maybe one more dance?”

It was like a shutter had abruptly slammed down over his features. “Be it far from me to monopolize you for the whole night,” he said, almost tightly. Even his hands seemed suddenly hard and cold, like iron. “I’m sure Iji will happily oblige you.”

_ What on earth did I say wrong?  _ Rey forced herself to hold back the sharp remark she was dying to make as he led her rigidly through another turn. “Iji’s very happy over there dancing with Professor Tico.”

“I’m sure he is. Yet he came to the ball with you. One would think you’d be offended.”

She would  _ not _ make a scene at the Yule Ball. “We came as just friends. I told him to go dance with one of them, because they looked like they had nobody to dance with.”

Solo’s throat visibly bobbed above his collar. “And is that why you accepted my offer? Because you pitied me?”

Oh, how she wanted to stamp on his foot. “Of course not. You looked like you were having a perfectly fine time with Professor Holdo before you walked over. Standing there and saying nothing.”

“You,” he said very softly, his voice trembling, “do  _ not _ get to needle at me when— when—”

“What?” she hissed back. “When  _ what?” _ He had no answer.

The music ended to the sound of applause as the dancers stopped. Solo let go of her as if she was a hot coal and turned on his heel, storming out of the Hall along the far wall. Rey stood there in shock, barely hearing the whispers:  _ did you see that? Was Solo dancing? Him? With— is that Nieman? What? _

Red sparks were glittering from his clenched fists as he went. She followed him, humiliated and angry: he’d just left her without a word in the middle of the room in front of everyone! Against all her rational mind, she followed him out and into the entrance hall, where only a few students were hanging about, some already kissing: they scattered as Solo swept for the stairs to the dungeons. “ _ Coward!” _ she shouted, furiously firing off a Stunning Spell that cracked the stone in front of his feet, and the rest of the wide-eyed teenagers fled into the Hall as Solo checked himself sharply and turned, staring at her. 

“ _ What _ ,” he snarled in a voice she was sure he reserved for the absolute worst of the trouble makers in his D.A.D.A. classes, “did you just _ say _ to me?”

“You heard me.” Rey stepped closer. “Can't even muster the courage to be polite for more than a second, can you? I don’t give a damn if you hate me or Iji or everyone else at this school: you don’t get to pretend to be kind to me and then shove me away when I’m a human being back to you in front of everyone I know. I’m not a game, or a toy. I’m a human being.” He was advancing back towards her direction, cloak billowing, and she forced herself to stand her ground. “You—” But Solo was walking past her, back into the staff room. Incensed, she stormed after him. “Didn’t you hear a word I said? Are you even  _ listening _ to me, you— you absolute  _ arse? _ ” Rey shoved the door open— it hadn’t been locked, and as she stepped in it slammed shut behind her she locked it automatically and cast  _ Muffliato _ to keep their conversation private from eavesdroppers: he wasn’t going to get away with this again. As she whirled about, she advanced, spitting fire. “You have no  _ right  _ to treat anyone like—”

“I have every right,” he snarled, bearing down on her and looming over her head like a thundercloud. “You have no idea—  _ none _ — I— I—” His face was trembling. Ruby-red and black coils of foggy, strangely oily-looking smoke were simmering off his shoulders, his hands. Something was about to break free:  _ must _ break free and find release, like a dam waiting to burst. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck. “You— you are  _ ruining it _ , Nieman, and you don’t even know— I don’t, I can’t risk this—you’ll be—”

“How am I supposed to know anything if I’m not told?” she demanded, taken aback at the ferocity of his unexpected reaction. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, how am I supposed to—” He was grasping his wand tightly in his block of a hand, she noticed, and red sparks were glittering at the tip.  _ Uncontrolled magic _ , Rey realized wildly, ignoring the danger pricking every hair on her body. She took a step back away from him and wished she hadn’t locked the door. “Solo. Calm down. Take— take a breath.”

He twitched, and a table overturned as if it had been thrown with force across the staffroom. Rey flinched. “You have to get out,” he gasped, fear in his voice. “Go. I can't stop it without... Get  _ out,  _ get out—”

She shook her head, stubbornness outweighing the risk. Something was happening here that was more important than her hurt feelings, or the ball, or the dancing. “No.  _ No, _ you’re not a child anymore, you can control it.”

Both his hands were shaking. “I can’t  _ risk your life, _ Aurelia—”

“Your magic is tied in to your emotions,” she said quickly. “It always— it’s like that for everyone. Fear, anger, hatred, loneliness— that won’t help you control it. Why d’you think a Patronus and all the rest of the highest magic has to be cast when you’re happy? You have to focus, yeah? You have to breathe—”

“I can’t, I  _ can’t _ —” His voice cracked as a stone in the fireplace shuddered and split in a shower of sparks. Real terror was threatening to eat him alive, consume him: if he harmed anyone with uncontrolled magic, he would loathe himself even more, and he would be caught in an endless cycle of self-hatred and fear. Rey saw that immediately. “Get out, just, just go—”

She shook her head and stepped forward instead. “I’m here. I want to help you.”

“You can’t—” Bright crimson lines of wavy light were emanating from his body now, his face tight and agonized as if he was straining to hold it back. “Aurelia,  _ go _ —”

“No,” she whispered, and took his hand. He let out an inarticulate little sound of agony, but he clutched her hand tightly right back, and then she did the most daring, awful thing she’d ever done in all her twenty-three years. She dropped her wand and hugged Professor Solo, threw her arms around him and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, gripping him so tightly that she thought she might crack his ribs.  _ If he loses it and kills me, at least I’ll have died doing something good, something kind… _ “I’m here,” she repeated into his robes. He smelled like wool, like silk, like the ozone tang of powerful magic. “I’m here, it's all right, just breathe—”

Solo made a funny little gasping sound— then she was being hugged back in shaking arms the size of tree branches, and he was sinking to his knees, clinging to her like she was a life raft and he was drowning. Heat was curling around her, singing at her fingertips, and she pulled her arms in, wincing. “Aurelia,” he croaked, and buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply. “Nobody’s— ever, in—”

“What, hugged you?” whispered Rey, a stab of shock making her tilt her head back. “Never?”

“Not since I was very young,” he said quietly, pain in his eyes. 

“Who was the last person to hug you? Do you remember?”

“My— my mother. Before I was sent off to Durmstrang for, for my fourth year.” 

Rey sprang on that. “Think about her. Think about that. Take a breath. Tell me what it was like.” 

“It was—” Solo blinked. “Sunny. The last day of summer. The… the grass outside the house, in the yard, was… buzzing, insects… the flowers were all starting to die and my mother hugged me and told me to be brave, and that— that she’d see me at the end of term. I was— already taller than her. I remember. Her head was under my chin.” He gave a strangled little laugh. Tears began to drip down his cheeks. “She smelled like roses. I never saw her again.” The burning, red and black streaks of magic were dissipating slowly, ebbing away as he breathed, as he found the strength to center himself.

“I— I hug lots of people. My students when they need it. I never— my parents weren’t very affectionate to me, and I suppose I’m making up for it.” Rey smiled and wiped away her own tears, thinking about lonely summers spent outside barefoot in council parks. “Sometimes people just need a hug, yeah?”

Solo sucked a shaky breath in and shut his eyes, looking like he might be sick as the last coil of red smoky light faded. “Is it over?” he asked in a very small voice.

“I think so. You feel all right?”

“Yes.” He made no move to let her go, however. “This is— I’m sorry, it’s not, not strictly professional to ask you to, to—”

“To keep hugging you for a bit? No, it’s not, but I’m not being exactly professional tonight, am I?” Rey brought her hands up and touched his shoulders lightly, and his eyelids flickered as if he was fighting to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head. “You all right?”

“It—it’s been a very long time since anyone’s— since I’ve let anyone—” Solo shook his head sharply. “I apologize. Please, don’t think this is— that I—”

“I won’t think anything. But what—could I ask what exactly was it that set this off?” Rey slid her hands away from his shoulders to rest on his forearms. It was an awkward position: he was kneeling and she was sort of half-kneeling, interlocked with him: her skirt was tangled in his trousers. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Something I said?”

“No. My thoughts tend to race away with me in moments of passion, and I find it difficult to… control myself. My magic. That’s my own vice, I guess.”

“What… were you thinking about?” He really smelled nice: past the wool and silk, there was the smoky woodsy scent that always clung to his cloak and a faint hint of something fresh, awake. Bergamot? She didn’t know. 

“I was thinking about how— how—” Solo shook his head, looking at the carpet. “How deceptively safe it felt to be making friendly conversation with someone.” He glanced up at her. “How I shouldn't have asked you if you'd stay at the ball all night. How wrenching it is to force yourself to be cruel, to ensure nobody gets close enough to you to be harmed, even if you would like— very much— to be— to be—” His nose turned a deep shade of scarlet.

“Oh,” said Rey, flabbergasted. He wanted to be her friend?  _ Him?  _ “But you— when I first got here you treated me like a— like— not even like a peer. How— when did you—”

“I can show you,” he said faintly, pale as death. “If you— if you use Legilimency on me again, I could— I stopped you, before. Stopped you from seeing all of it: all of my thoughts about you. They’re not—they’re not good thoughts, Nieman. They’re twisted and, and— filthy, some of them— I don’t understand half of them myself, but you, you never judge anyone, do you? Not even by their thoughts. And if you see them, then maybe you’ll understand something of how I’ve felt the past two years.”

“Solo,” said Rey, half-horrified. “Um—right now, you mean?”

“You might as well. It should be easy. My— mental strength is very low at the moment,” he said, disentangling himself from her robes and hauling himself up to sit on the couch, looking ill. “Fire when ready.”

“Solo—” As tempting as the offer might be, Rey shook her head. “You certainly don’t need me blasting into your head and sorting through all your private thoughts. You look like you need a stiff drink and about twelve hours of sleep.”

“Should I tell you, then? Would you trust me with that?” He leaned forward, his hair hanging in his eyes as he focused on her face, an almost feverish light gleaming in them. “I— I’ve thought about—not only being a friend to you, Nieman. Not just that. I… desire intimacies of another kind.” Rey’s neck tingled: his eyes were as intense as the sun. Sweat was beading on his upper lip as he struggled to speak. “I— the night, the Hallowe’en feast, you— in the corridor, when, when you— when—” His eyes darted down to her chest, then back up.

She flushed. “When you, um, saw my—”

“Yes,” he choked off, looking everywhere but at her as his nose turned crimson. “When— that happened—I, I thought about it after. Thought about your… how you… might look in, in nothing but— in—”

“I get the idea,” she said quietly. His hands were shaking. 

“You don’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I—didn’t  _ want _ to stop thinking about it. I’ve never felt like this before. Never.” 

“It’s… perfectly normal,” Rey assured him, trying to remember how to breathe. “I mean, after I saw you without your, um, shirt on, it wasn’t as if I just forgot about it. In fact, I—”

“Don’t tell me,” Solo whispered, voice cracking slightly. “Please. The worst thing you could possibly do would be to tell me that these, these, this obsession with you— is reciprocated.”

“You’re not obsessed,” she protested. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re— it’s complicated both ways, that much is clear. And— look, Solo, you can stop it when things begin to get out of hand. You just did.”

“I’m aware I can stop uncontrollable outbursts most of the time,” he said flatly. “Normally I—” and his voice cut off, his mouth pressed into a tight line.

“You what?” Rey asked, confused.

“It doesn’t matter.” Solo sat up, looking drained. “Go back to the ball. Go dance with your friends, Nieman.”

“Why would I want to dance when the best dancer’s locked away in the staff room?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Solo shook his head as she sat on the sofa beside him. “Nothing frightens you, does it?”

She shrugged. “Some things. Great big hairy spiders, can’t stand them.”

When he spoke, he sounded bitterly tired. “But not a man who has barely-controlled outbursts of raw magic, like some untrained child, who’s killed people with it— that’s all well and good.”

“Oddly, no,” she said cheerfully. “Once you see a man sweating madly and confessing to the awful crime of wondering how you look without your knickers, he stops being intimidating a bit, I think.”

“Very funny,” deadpanned Solo, ducking his head. A little flush colored his cheeks. 

She grinned at him. “Look, just one more dance, and then we can call it a night— you can do whatever you like, and I’ll go grade essays. Yeah?”

“Fine. One condition.” His gaze darted down to her mouth— she caught her breath: what was he going to ask for?—and back up to her eyes. “You let me tidy you up. Can’t have you going back in there looking like this.”

* * *

“Where have you been?” asked Iji over the bright, cheerful waltz playing as Rey slipped back into the doors. “Thought Solo ate you alive or something!”

“No, just had a— just had to run out for a moment,” Rey explained, trying her best not to sound suspicious. “Is all the food gone?”

“Nearly. Best make a run for it.” Solo slipped in, and Iji’s dark eyes found him before he turned back to Rey. “Go on. Maybe there’s some pudding left.” Rey hurried off. 

Iji turned to the other man, who nodded slowly at him in acknowledgement. Neither of them spoke for a moment until Iji finally said, “Right. I don’t know what you’re up to with Rey Nieman, but she’s like a sister to me, Solo. And I’m not going to have you messing with her for— for magical experiments or something. Whatever it is.”

Solo took that in stride. “It’s not like that, Iji. She misunderstood something I said and followed me out into the hall.”

“And had a blow-down spat, to hear the sixth-years tell it, before she chased you into the staff room?”

Solo colored slightly. “Yes. The misunderstanding was... cleared up.”

“Merlin’s  _ ass,  _ Solo,” Iji said, dragging his hands down his face. “Do not tell me you are  _ hooking up with Rey _ in the goddamn staff room—”

“What?” Solo choked, looking shocked. “What— _no_ , that _ —” _

Finn Iji was on a roll, however, and could not be stopped. “She’s twenty-three and you’re thirty-two, you absolute—if I  _ ever _ find out you’ve taken advantage of her I will personally hex your cock to fly off, do you understand me?”

Solo had turned an extraordinary shade of white. “I would— I— that is  _ not  _ the nature of any relationship I have with a single member of the faculty, Iji, and if you ever imply otherwise again I’ll—”

Rey came back with a full plate. “Great news! There  _ is _ still pudding!” she said brightly, and glanced from Finn to Solo. “Erm. Have I walked into a—”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Finn hurriedly. “You enjoy the party.” He aimed his best Stern Professor look at Solo. “Both of you. But not too much.”


End file.
